


Hearth

by gogomato (kujojongup)



Category: B.A.P
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ordinary People, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Development, Dark Undertones, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Dynamics, Family Fluff, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Platonic Relationships, SO MUCH FLUFF, Self-Discovery, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Unrequited Crush, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, a fic so pure it could baptize heechul, not really - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-03-30 17:41:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13956729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kujojongup/pseuds/gogomato
Summary: Zelo may have been created in a laboratory, but he's still human. It’s hard to see the difference between being a human and being a person, but he'll have to learn it sooner or later. After all, others are making sacrifices so that he can have freedom—he can’t let those efforts go to waste.





	1. prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soooooo here's a thing.
> 
> i'm not gonna update this for a WHILE but i mean i figured i'd post it because why tf not
> 
> i know himchan's not tagged as a character (maybe i'll add him in??) but he's literally just in this one chapter soooo
> 
> yeah
> 
> enjoy

He’s been prepared for this moment for years now, and yet, it doesn’t feel real.

The shivering, thoughtless boy in his backseat is alive, somehow. Wrapped in two comforters and propped up on two pillows, he almost looks like he’s sleeping serenely—like a tired friend that Himchan so kindly decided to drive home after a long night at the bar. If that was reality, things would be much, much more simple than they are now. But no, things have to be irreversibly complicated and the moment Himchan drives by the sign that tells him he’s exiting Milan, he knows that all his plans are truly setting into motion.

Yongguk is out in the countryside, forcing himself to stay awake as Himchan makes the long drive. He’s probably listening to a radio broadcast—but Himchan has opted for silence since it feels like every other phrase that comes out of the hosts’ mouths is ‘ _if anyone has any information about the missing Jung Daehyun, please contact…_ ’

It’s borderline sickening, like the guilt tying Himchan’s stomach in knots, but his plans couldn’t be interrupted by the news of his missing friend. This heist has been planned for years now, ever since he’d first laid eyes on the project he was signed onto. He couldn’t back out of it—it was too late.

His heart is racing, now. He can’t believe it—he really did it. The shattered glass on the floor, the wiped documents and photos and reports that now only exist on a USB that’s sitting pretty in his cup holder, and the phone call from his foreign conspirators saying that he needs to hurry and get on the flight they booked for him before it’s too late. His foot presses further down on the gas when he passes a sign indicating a heightening of the speed limit, and he finds himself giggling and smiling like a maniac.

Himchan feels like he did when he and Yongguk were just kids that loved to cause trouble, taking knickknacks at their leisure and acting like they were wanted bandits.

God be damned, Himchan. You really stole a person.

It was the year 2010 when this ambition started—precisely seven years ago, when Himchan signed onto Division M.I.M with great recommendations, and learned of the horrible project being led under the direction of Kim Taesong.

Why did they have to have the same famiy name? 

The thought of possibly being related to him makes Himchan want to vomit.

Why exploit people for labour, when we can create people for the purpose of labour? That’s what it was all about. No ethics, no sensibility, and no heart. Just a thought of an advanced future and a disregard for human life, simply acting as though you can abuse someone under the pretense that you created them and therefore own them—that they aren’t natural-born humans so what’s the difference between them and a machine?

It makes Himchan’s heart pound in anger, and makes the hairs on his arm rise. Just who do they think they are?

Even if he gets caught at the airport and meets his fate for treason—for theft and whatever charge they want to plaster on a fancy piece of paper before they sweep it under the rug and make him disappear—he needs to get to Yongguk.

Everything is for nothing if he gets caught before he’s in and out of San Gimignano.

He looks back at the boy wrapped in blankets through the rear-view mirror, and frowns. It was a good thing that he rescued the boy before they put the microchip in him—but only in the long run.

In all honesty, Himchan fears for when the boy wakes up.

They’d ran through all the risks based on what had been done to the previous, so-called “prototypes”; nausea, anxiety, sensory overload—an entire basket case, as they stupidly called it.

What would it be like to be born with semantic and procedural memories? In a fully grown body, pieced together and thrust into the world without ever having to develop?

They called it fascinating, how the brain reacted. Stress beyond compare, sensory overload, intense nausea, confusion, delirium—just how much mental pain was measured? And the solution—if you could even call it that—manifested in the form of a microchip. Although he has the documents, Himchan doesn’t dare let himself know how it would’ve placated the boy. He’s angry enough just imagining how robotic it sounds; like the boy would’ve never had freedom if they got that thing into his arm.

He regrets that he’s set the boy up for mental anguish, but although the initial price is steep, the value of free will is never going to crash.

Himchan almost feels protective over the boy in his backseat, like he’s his mother or something. If not for the risk of getting caught, Himchan wouldn’t hesitate to bring him along to North America. But if he was found, and the boy was taken back, everything would be worthless.

He’s giving up his own freedom and safety to grant it to another person—this has to work perfectly. Every variable needs to be controlled, every outlier needs to be gotten rid of.

Seven years of planning, waiting, watching the pendulum of the grandfather clock swing back and forth, back and forth, and back and forth. He swears to every god and goddess in the pantheon, to the Christ he was raised to worship, and to the ever-looming presence of God he feels over his shoulder—he will not fail.

 

* * *

 

Halfway to San Gimignano, at two in the morning, Himchan hears a gasp from his backseat and slams the brake pedal with full force. He yanks his glove box open and grabs the waiting water bottle and sleeping pills, and nimbly climbs through the two front seats—thankful that he invested in a spacious vehicle.

The boy is awake, and wide-eyed. He’s panting like he just ran a marathon and shock is written across his face in messy cursive letters.

“Zelo,” Himchan says, wincing at the sound of the for-whatever-reason Greek name that Kim Taesong—that bastard—had chosen. Unsurprisingly, Zelo responds to it, jerking his head to the side and staring at Himchan. His eyes scream confusion and pain, making Himchan’s heart wrench. “Good, you can hear me. Do you understand me?”

Slowly, Zelo nods, and Himchan’s amazed despite the fact that he was on the team that created this Frankenstein-inspired human. The fact that it was actually possible to birth a fully-grown person with cognition yet without memories is revolutionary; and that idea is manifested, right in front of him.

It could be a thing of grandeur, if it wasn’t pushed forward by a grossly inhumane motive.

The public 'simply wouldn't understand'. They had to keep it secret, before they could reveal the result in all it's glory. What they were doing was for the greater good of society, but it just had to be kept a secret from society. Until the time was right, they said.

Liars.

It almost makes Himchan feel dirty, knowing that he played along with their little game for almost three quarters of a decade.

“You’re going to be okay,” Himchan says, putting the items on the ground and placing his hand over the blanket where Zelo’s thigh is. He keeps his voice slow and enunciates every word, making him feel kind-of like he’s impersonating Yongguk. “My name is Himchan, but you probably know that. I got you out of that place before they could do those things they talked about.”

It seems crazy, but Himchan knows that Zelo heard every word spoken in that laboratory—yet another cruel reason why they wanted to placate him before he reached full consciousness. No one wants a rebellious slave.

But hat was the entire consequence of making a human they way they did, Zelo would be able to think and understand. Whatever nurture had influenced the brains used to make his posed a threat, and would need to be countered before they could fully wake him. 

And instead of treating him fairly, like a human being, they chose to be sick. 

Zelo moves his mouth like he’s trying to answer Himchan, but no words come out. Himchan can’t assume anything, although he thinks he makes out the words ‘thank you’ from Zelo’s movement.

“Here,” Himchan says, reaching down to grab the pills and the water again. He holds the water between his legs while he takes a single pill out from the container, then uncaps the bottle and moves closer to Zelo. “If you get proper sleep, it’ll be easier.”

While he wants Zelo to feel better and to have an easy adjustment, he also doesn’t want vomit in his car.

Tentatively, he places the pill into Zelo’s mouth, thankful at the lack of resistance. Zelo’s compliant as Himchan tilts his chin up with one hand, carefully pouring water into his mouth. He manages to swallow the pill with only a half-choke, and eagerly downs a few gulps of water before Himchan pulls back.

“You’ll be fine,” he says, capping the bottle and picking up the container before climbing back into the front seat. He thinks he hears Zelo whine as he leaves, so once he’s buckled up again he turns back and smiles. “Just rest, okay? You’ll wake up in a better place.”

Nodding hazily, Zelo closes his eyes and relaxes into the comforters and pillows again—no doubt already tired just from waking up the way he did. If Himchan’s theory was correct, the sleeping pill would make the second awakening a lost less jarring. From his own experience, that prescription was great at giving him vivid and just-slightly-unrealistic dreams. He hopes it will sort out all the scattered knowledge lurking in Zelo’s head, so he won’t be overwhelmed when he wakes up in Yongguk’s cottage.

At least, that's what he hopes will happen.

Just a few more hours, and he’ll be safe and sound while Himchan’s on the run. What an odd thought.

Himchan will need to remind Yongguk of so many things, maybe ten times over just to put his own mind at peace. He trusts Yongguk with his life, and definitely with Zelo’s, too—but his paranoia is getting the better of him.

For now, he just has to keep driving.

 

* * *

 

It’s bittersweet in the most torturous sense, standing in front of Yongguk’s cottage at four in the morning. The air is cold, and he can barely see the home itself—only Yongguk and Youngjae’s faces illuminated by his car’s headlights.

It feels like letting his own child go when he looks at Youngjae holding Zelo—fast asleep—in his arms, with the pillows placed over his body and the comforter still wrapped around. It must be heavy, but he’s not complaining.

“We already said our goodbyes last week, didn’t we?” Himchan jokes, blinking back tears. “Why do I feel like doing a dramatic monologue right now?”

“Because you might never see us again, you cliché dumbass,” Youngjae retorts, voice cracking. Shit, he’s already crying—now Himchan’s just going to not be able to hold back his own tears. “You’ll at least call us regularly, right?”

“When I’m sure things are safe, yeah,” Himchan says, sniffling. He quickly gives up trying to not cry, there’s no use acting like a tough guy when he is a vigilante from now on. It’s possible he’ll never see his friends face-to-face again, and although they prematurely said their grand goodbyes so they wouldn’t waste time, it’s only now sinking in that this is the moment he leaves everything behind. “Take care of Zelo for me.”

“Himchan,” Yongguk says with a firm voice and a smile, although his eyes are distinctly red—he’s always been better at keeping composure. “Remember when we were kids, and we stole that gold crucifix from the cathedral in Florence? On Easter?”

“Of course I do,” Himchan laughs, letting the nostalgia draw more tears out of him.

Yongguk just grins at him, like his sadness is something funny or positive. “I still have it, you know.”

“The first heist,” Himchan breathes and finds himself grinning right back. “And now the last.”

“If you get caught and die I’m going to strangle you when I get to Hell,” Youngjae says, blubbering like a child. “Got that, you bastard?”

“Kim Himchan isn’t dying anytime soon,” Yongguk states proudly, holding his arms out. “Right?”

“Right,” Himchan says, and gladly walks into Yongguk’s arms.

It’s a sappy goodbye, with a too-long and too-tight hug from Yongguk first, and then from Youngjae when Yongguk offers to carry Zelo for him. They’re both equally depressing—with Yongguk having too much faith and pride in his lifelong best friend and Youngjae being a contagious crybaby that soaks Himchan’s nice coat in tears, because neither of them could care less about ruining expensive material. He whispers one of his catchphrases into Yongguk’s ear, and softly tells Youngjae that it isn’t the end just yet.

Himchan has to rub at his eyes every few seconds as he drives away, wishing his last moment with his friends had more smiles than tears—and that Daehyun could’ve been there, with them. Instead, they were missing a piece of their quartet and all Himchan can think of is the solemn hope emanating from Yongguk and the cries of Youngjae.

But he knows it’s what he needs. He can take that hope and that sadness and let it be his fuel to survive, so that one day he can show up on Yongguk’s doorstep with a grand smile and lots of gifts, saying ‘surprise! I bet you thought you’d seen the last of me.’

Right, this can’t be the end—this is not the end.

Let the entire world know the truth. Scream it from the rooftops, and preach it in the Vatican. From the Florentine cathedrals to the canals in Venice, from the fortress of Forli to the conspiracy hidden under the streets of Milan:

This is not the end.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the softness in this fic is gonna be so real lemme tell ya
> 
> just don't ask why it takes place in italy bc lord knows i have NO fucking clue


	2. dandelion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't really have anything to say about this lmao it's just a chapter and it's just here, idk

There’s a vast, green meadow filled with wildflowers—a massive clearing in a lush forest.

A Saskatchewan prairie as wide as the sea, stretching end to end without a single silhouette in the distance.

An ocean which swallows the world in cold, blue beauty, with life all around.

An ocean that's green with waving hills and pastures in the distance.

Mountains with peaks covered in thick layers of snow, reaching far into the sky and dissipating into the clouds.

Sandy deserts. Vibrant jungles. Pine forests. The everlasting tundra, and the badlands.

The entire world curves into a sphere—a planet—in the open void of the universe. It forms the foundation upon which life stands. Perfectly staged for humanity to tread upon, as though they’re the directors, the stage managers, technicians, designers, and actors of the far-reaching scope of life.

Zelo sees it all behind his eyes in the vivid colours of his dream. He sees the motorcycles of gang members in the sketchy side of town.

Or maybe he's seeing _Grease_ , _The Outsiders_ , something-or-other.

The mansions of the prim and proper that reek of lilac and lavender. The children and their colouring books, the adults and their thick keyboards…families, lovers, friends, colleagues—strangers, enemies, and the forgotten.

His dream seems to jump all over the place, from a kitchen that smells of bacon and eggs, to a school classroom filled with tired and snarky teenagers, to the smile of an adoring mother looking downwards at him. And then, to the infatuated gaze of a slanted-eyed lover looking up at him.

That one lingers longer than the rest.

It feels like he should be remembering something important, but all he can see is the endless scope of the world in its entirety, so far above his own existence.

Something isn’t quite right, but even as he passes through the planes of life, he feels warmth. No matter how cold the environment, or strange the situation, he feels overcome with something soft and warm. He's immune to the blizzards and the cold showers.

Then, there's the sweet aroma of tea, the delighted feeling after eating a sweet slice of cake.

The cries of a newborn baby, the tears of an old woman at her husband’s funeral.

His dream seems to culminate to something—a man dressed in a white leather jacket, fringe down the arms, and aviators tells him he should wake up, and then he’s sent off to a strawberry field where he picks and picks until his basket is full.

Waking up seems nice, though. He could piece this strange jump-cut dream together like a jigsaw puzzle, and discover the bigger picture.

Then, right as he’s ready to wake up, he finds himself in a reinforced tube of some sort, floating in thick, clear liquid that’s tinged red.

He puts his hands up against the glass, staring down at the room he’s in. Scientists move around frantically, writing down notes and typing away at small computers.

One is staring up at him full of wonder and remorse. He waves at him, but there’s no response—as if he didn’t move at all. A man in a more distinguished white coat comes along and pats that scientist on the back.

That’s when Zelo realizes that he’s dreaming a clear memory, and that he can’t change it, even if he can move slightly in the small space of his prison.

“They’re making the microchip now,” the distinguished man says to the other, grinning maliciously. “Once we implement it, we can wake him up properly. No crazy behaviours. Isn’t it exciting? We may be able to start contacting corporations, and if we can get their funding we’ll be able to start cloning with our new technology. Within a few years’ time, we might be able to successfully manifest a factory. Just think of how much money we’ll make! And no more slave labour; can't you see it?”

“Sounds great, Dr. Kim,” the scientist says, but his voice sounds less than enthused about the idea. Zelo thinks he knows this scientist…what’s his name again? “But we’ll need to be careful about any information leaking…”

“That’s all taken care of. Don’t worry about it, Himchan,” the distinguished man laughs, winking at the scientist—Himchan. Zelo swears he knows that name from somewhere. “Just do your job. It’s all you really can do until he wakes up, hm?”

Until he wakes up?

He should do that—before it’s too late.

Too late for what, he doesn’t know.

Zelo’s eyes slowly blink open, blearily revealing a rather plain, beige ceiling illuminated by natural light.

A heavy comforter weighs him down, coming up to his shoulders to chase away the cold. His body sinks right into the mattress, but the pillows could be a little firmer.

The last thing he remembers is that scientist, Himchan, telling him he’d wake up in a better place.

Sitting up to gaze over the room, it’s not like Himchan had been wrong. He’s in a twin bed, pushed into the corner of the room; an unlit lamp sits on the bedside table, and the expanse of the room is covered by a homely, burgundy rug. There’s a scarcely-stocked bookshelf next to a window when he looks at the fourth wall, and on the direct opposite side of the room there’s a dresser with a mirror over it.

He can almost see his face, and he realizes he’s never seen it before.

Part of him wishes he had no memory of anything—he can recall the conversations he overheard, about making him the _ideal slave_.

Somehow, he just _knows_ what that means. It makes him anxious.

He subconsciously pokes his forearms to make sure that the microchip he heard about wasn’t actually installed. He silently thanks Himchan for whatever pill he gave him, because the sheer force of information exploding in his head isn’t present like it was before.

When he first woke up, it was with the impact of being hit be a freight train. Millions of things barreled into his conscience all at once: words, then phrases.

Concepts, thoughts, opinions, knowledge—it makes his hands shake when he remembers the intense headache it gave him. He was just barely able to listen and respond to Himchan in those moments.

 _“You’re going to be okay,”_ Himchan had said.

Standing up feels natural, if a bit wobbly, although Zelo regrets leaving the comfort of the bed. Cold air hits his skin and makes goosebumps rise. Still, he walks over to the mirror and stares at himself, clad in over-sized blue shirt and black boxers he doesn’t remember having.

He has almond-shaped eyes and small, pouty lips. His jaw is strong, unlike his cute nose. His hair is ashy-blonde and mussed, but soft and untangled when he runs a hand through it, noticing that his fingers are thick and bony. His skin is as pale as snow, though, and his dark circles stick out like sore thumbs.

It’s all so strange. There’s an odd sense of safety that hangs in the air, making him feel inclined to trust wherever he is. That tube he was in was so cold and unwelcoming—anything other than that is good enough for him.

He checks the knob of the door, pleased to find it unlocked. This place isn’t meant to trap him. In fact, there’s something warmly familiar about the atmosphere, as if he’s been here before.

Himchan must be waiting for him on the other side of the door, and everything will start to make sense, right?

Nothing Himchan had said had been a lie. He feels less disoriented and woke up in a much, much better place than before. Smiling in anticipation, he lets his mind run wild with the possibilities of what sort of existence awaits him beyond the door.

Without hesitation, he pulls it open and winces and how it creaks. He opens it wide, slowly, examining his surroundings.

It seems he’s on the top floor of some house—which is more-or-less just a landing. To his left, there’s one door and a staircase headed downwards, and to his right there are two more closed doors. The entrances to his room—presumably—and the two to his right form a sort of semicircle, and the landing itself isn’t anything special. It has pale flooring with the centre covered by a fluffy chestnut-toned rug, and the only other décor is a clothes’ hamper and some thin, black-and-white photographs framed between the doors.

They all seem to have people in them.

The one almost directly across from him catches his attention. As he closes in on it, he can see that it’s a photo of five men sitting around a circular restaurant booth. One is in the middle, wearing an obnoxious hat with the number twenty-five on it in weird font. The other four sit half-and-half on either side of the hat-wearing man—the ones on the left seem to be cuddling closer together. There’s a cake on the table, candles still aflame, and it’s definitely the hat-wearing man’s birthday party.

All five of them are grinning like it’s the happiest day of their lives.

Weirdly, they all seem incredibly familiar to Zelo. After a few moments of staring, he can recognize Himchan sitting directly to the right of the hat-wearing man, but the rest are an aching mystery.

Zelo stands up straight and frowns in confusion.

“Oh, you’re awake,” a deep voice says behind him.

He feels a jump in his body and gasps, spinning around. The hat-wearing man is in front of him, right by the top of the staircase, except he’s not in a hat. His eyes are deep and heavy with puffy bags, and his hair is dark and curly. There’s nothing overly special about him, it seems—aside from the fact that he’s in a fuzzy purple bathrobe that looks suspiciously like it came from the woman’s clothing section.

“…Can you understand me?” the man says, and Zelo realizes that he didn’t give an answer. Not really trusting his dry throat to work for him, he simply nods. “Thank God. Are you hungry?”

Now that the man mentions it, Zelo _is_ hungry. Extremely hungry. That’s to be expected—he’s never eaten anything, and he just has this stomach sitting inside of him waiting for something to go inside of it. But he’s never felt it before and the growling is fairly disconcerting.

So, he nods again, hands instinctively coming up to feel his flat abdomen as his stomach makes a disturbing noise.

“Good, good—I made pancakes. Come on.” The man—Zelo wishes he’d introduce himself already—gestures for him to follow and walks down the stairs. They’re narrow and slightly steep, and Zelo has to hold the railing and walk slowly. Thankfully, it doesn’t seem to be an issue that he takes his time, and he’s soon introduced to the rest of the house.

Well, kind-of.

The foyer and hallway are definitely over double the width of the stairs, but still quite small. To his left, there’s an archway through which he can see a fireplace with a mantel that's absolutely _cluttered_ , with a painting over top, but the right archway is where the man leads him before he can really see it. He notices that the hallway continues past the stairs, leading to a backdoor as well as three others along the walls—one right under the staircase—but he pays them no mind.

He’s greeted by the sweet scent of warm pancakes and coffee, and the visuals of a grandmother’s kitchen. It’s all pale blue-green and old-fashioned, but the appliances don’t look outdated. Maybe this man inherited this house from his grandparents? It’s hard to tell.

A rosary made of thick, white pearls hangs like a talisman from the hook on the door leading outside. Whatever’s out there, Zelo can’t see—the blinds on all the windows are only opened slightly.

The table only has three chairs with the fourth side close to the wall, and one space is left blank. At least it’s obvious where Zelo should sit, with one space having a half-drunk coffee where a plate should be, and the other having actual pancakes.

As he sits, the man puts a glass of water right in front of him, smiling.

“Drink this and try talking, okay?” he says. Zelo feels robotic, but he responds with yet another nod before he hastily chugs some of the water, taking a break to sigh at how much better his throat feels. It makes the man chuckle. “Better?”

“Yeah,” Zelo answers, voice hoarse. He coughs it out, takes another gulp, and tries again—happy when his voice comes out clearer. “ _Yeah_. Where’s Himchan? Who are you?”

It’s weird—he feels like Himchan is going to come around the corner at any moment. He’ll have a fond look in those dark, gentle eyes, and slight smile on his face as he says, ‘Good morning.’

His hand was soft, Zelo remembers.

“That’s the first thing you ask?” The man blinks, seemingly surprised, but it’s hard to tell. “I’m Yongguk, his friend. I’m supposed to look after you." Zelo stares, and Yongguk shifts uncomfortably in the awkward pause. "Um, if you don’t mind me asking; Himchan said you’d realize why you’re here. …Do you? Really?”

Now it’s Zelo turn to be surprised, although his chest tightens in discomfort as he thinks of being trapped in that strange red fluid again. “Of course I know. Kind-of, a bit, I guess,” he huffs, petulantly picking up his fork and knife and distracting himself with the pancakes. A little more syrup would’ve been nice, but they’re good. “Where’s Himchan?” he asks, mouth partially full.

Yongguk sips at his coffee before responding. “He had to leave,” he says, vaguely. “So this is your home. He left a letter for you, though. It’s in the first drawer of your bedside table if you-”

“When can I see him again?” Zelo interrupts, feeling impatient. Yongguk takes forever to get through a sentence; he wishes he’d hurry it up a little.

There’s a pause where Yongguk looks down and drums his fingers against his mug, filling the silence with the sound of nails against ceramic. “Probably not for a long time,” he mumbles. Zelo gets the hint. “More importantly, how are you feeling?”

Well, that’s a stupid question. He was living, _made_ , inside some laboratory contraption, and he was broken out presumably not even twelve hours ago.

But, all things considered, he feels fine. Just _fine_. His head isn’t containing a cacophonic symphony, his hands are stable, and his body feels like a, well, a body.

If anything, he should feel worse, but he doesn’t. He shouldn’t even know what fine is, or what anything is, and it’s just _weird_ that he just _knows_.

But, all things considered, he feels fine.

“…Normal?” Zelo furrows his brows and tilts his head like a puppy.

Even though Zelo has no clue if he himself knows what he means when he says normal, Yongguk nods as if he understands. “Do you feel scared?”

“No,” Zelo deadpans, frowning. He thinks he should feel scared, _knows_ that he should feel scared, with a complete stranger who he knows nothing about aside from that he’s Himchan friend. But maybe knowing Himchan, having him in a framed photograph, is enough to base his lack of fear on. “…Why did Himchan leave?” he asks, then shovels more pancake into his mouth.

“You seem really hell-bent on Himchan,” Yongguk remarks, taking a sip his coffee. Before Zelo can swallow and retort, he continues. “He’s faraway. That’s all I know.” He puts his hands up in surrender when Zelo glares at him accusingly. “I’m not lying. I really don’t know where he went.”

Zelo impatiently swallows, wincing as it drags down his throat and burns slightly in his chest. “You said he left a letter for me?”

Yongguk nods, as slowly as he talks.

 

(Okay, his speech and his movements aren’t _that_ slow. But they're not fast enough.)

 

“Can I read it later?” he asks hopefully.

Again, Yongguk nods. “It’s in your bedside drawer, whenever you’re ready.”

There’s an awkward silence as he finishes his food, and it only draws out as Yongguk takes his plate away and goes to wash it.

It’s hard not to stare at him. Zelo isn’t sure how reliable his gut feeling is, having less than an hour of interaction with anyone at all, but he gets the sense that Yongguk doesn’t like talking. Or rather, he’s not used to talking.

Then again, there was that photo of his birthday party.

He’s not used to talking to new people, specifically, maybe?

Regardless, there’s something strange about Yongguk’s presence. Nothing off-putting or worrying—there’s no shivers going up Zelo’s spine just from looking at him—but there’s definitely something. It puts a weird feeling in his shoulders and makes him feel on edge, but also safe.

A weird mix.

“If I’m living here,” Zelo asks, “do you want me to do anything?” He’d feel weirder if he ends up freeloading with nothing to do. Heck, he doesn’t even know where he is. That thought gets pushed to the back of his head, though.

“You mean like chores?” Yongguk turns to face him, eyebrows raised.

Zelo nods. “Yeah.”

Yongguk looks skeptical, for whatever reason. “If you want. Wait a few days, though. Get used to things.”

“But-”

“No buts,” Yongguk says firmly. He’s not trying to be intimidating, but Zelo feels like he has to shut up. “…Why don’t you go outside? You should, but don’t wander off.”

Oh, yeah.

He has absolutely _no_ idea where the fuck he is.

He forgot about that.

“Wait, where I am?” he blurts, eyes widening. Yongguk chuckles as he dries off his hands with a towel hanging off the over door. “Seriously, where is this place?”

“San Gimignano,” Yongguk states proudly, walking over to grab his mug. He carries it over to the sink and starts washing it, too. “But we’re not in the city. Go see for yourself.”

Not bothering to think about what Yongguk said, Zelo makes a beeline for the kitchen door, and pushes it open. The pearls of the rosary smack loudly against the window pane, but he doesn’t care enough to hear it.

Immediately, he’s smacked in the face by wind, forcing his eyes shut for a moment. But when he opens them again-

 

He recognizes this scenery.

 

There’s grass as far as the eye can see, fading out into the distant skyline of San Gimignano. The morning sun is golden, blinding, and washes over the countryside like a glaze. Small hills roll up and down, and on the tops of them—or poking out beside them—are other secluded houses, some that seem to be farms of some kind. Free from the city, the air is cold and fresh, making Zelo shiver as he takes in the lingering humidity.

He forgets that he’s not wearing socks, and steps out onto the small, stony path that leads to the front of the house. Ignoring it completely, he walks onto the grass and jumps slightly at the feeling of cold morning dew against his feet.

It’s soft though—the grass. Despite his lack of memories—of a prior life at all—it feels nostalgic to him.

Everything is just-

 

_Beautiful._

 

Endlessly beautiful.

He realizes that this place was in his dream-medley of the world—the sky of blue, the sea of green. The hills as the rolling waves and beneath the ground there’s a whole world like the underwater abyss.

And he is nothing more than this miniscule, insignificant and meaningless life in this grand world, like single dandelion seed in a field of thousands.

As the breeze comes in, Zelo feels as though he’ll take flight.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh man ya boi is coming next chapter


	3. music box

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey this is shit and not proofread so i'm sorry for any grammar/spelling errors and general typos
> 
> FAIR WARNING: there's some creepy mentions of spiders in this chapter. i don't think it's anything too bothersome, just kind-of uncomfortable, but if spiders really freak you out just jump to the bottom and leave a comment asking for an overview of this chapter so you don't need to read it.
> 
> but for everyone who can read this, i hope you like it! it's a pretty important chapter with lots of subtle details.

The letter doesn’t get touched that day.

Zelo gets as far as taking the envelope out of the drawer and reading his name in cursive across the paper, but he puts it away before he gets to the point of opening it. Whatever Himchan wrote for him, he’s not ready to read it, for whatever reason. His fingers itch to grab it again; it’s a pretty shade of baby pink and the penmanship is flawless, not a single smudge or blot. There’s this childlike instinct inside of him, telling him to rip it open and claim whatever’s inside for himself, like a middle schooler who knows there’s money in their birthday card.

But he just can’t. The envelope, letter still inside, gets slipped back into the drawer.

He goes back downstairs, feeling lost. Yongguk is sitting on a rocking chair, writing in a notebook that he closes as soon as Zelo walks into the room.

Sitting down on the couch, Zelo shakes his head. “I can’t read it,” he says, his voice cracking at the end. Yongguk doesn’t question it.  

Instead, Yongguk shows him things.

The living room is cluttered and, well, lived-in. The couch is navy blue velvet with matching pillows, and comfortable. The shag rug under the coffee table is a similar colour. Pretty much every furniture piece is navy blue, or soft maple if it’s made of wood. Like the kitchen, very grandmother-like. The stone that makes up the fireplace is a light grey, too.

Yongguk tells Zelo about all the knickknacks in the room, like they’re ancient treasures dug up from deserted islands and tombs.

The grandfather clock sits in the room’s upper-outer corner, if Zelo thinks of it in a way that makes sense to him. It’s dark wood, walnut, unlike everything else, with a golden pendulum. It’s a family heirloom, apparently, or at least one in the making. Yongguk’s the third to keep it, although he bashfully admits that he doubts he’ll ever get married and have kids, as much as he'd like to. Zelo bites his own lip, but wants to ask how old he actually is.

On the fireplace mantel, there’s plenty of leather notebooks, an aloe vera plant, two green candles, a jewelry bowl filled with Yongguk’s mother’s necklaces, and a golden crucifix that’s no bigger than Yongguk’s hand. Zelo doesn’t really get it at first.

“This kind of crucifix is what they use during funerals. They put them on the casket during the service,” Yongguk explains to him.

Zelo furrows his eyebrows. “Why do you have one?”

Yongguk smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Himchan and I stole it from the church when we were kids. We liked to pretend we were bandits.”

On the bookshelf next to window, there’s maybe five books on four of the shelves each—the one at the bottom is dusty and empty. Yongguk takes a bright yellow music box covered in painted lilies off the second shelf and plays it. The sound makes Zelo feel happy for some reason, even though the song sounds longing despite its cheery exterior.

Strangely, Yongguk shows him all the books, explaining the ones that are non-fiction and encouraging Zelo to consider reading the novels, but he never touches the Jack in a Box on the fourth shelf. Almost like the box is plagued, and he’ll catch his death if he so much as grazes it.

Zelo decides not to ask about it.

After he explains that the music box was a gift from a friend, there's not much else of interest that he's willing to talk about. An iPad and a radio on the coffee table, a newspaper with the headline covered by a closed notepad, and an empty mug with the calm scenery of a port on it—complete with a sailboat.

When Yongguk's not looking, he lifts the notepad out of curiosity.

'MISSING MILANESE SCIENTIST STILL NOT FOUND – POLICE CONSIDER GIVING UP SEARCH UNTIL MORE CLUES TURN UP’

Zelo doesn’t get to think about it much. He puts the notepad back before Yongguk sees that he moved anything at all.

The other side of the couch is, decidedly, the less exciting half of the room. There’s an ornate round table, matching chairs included, with a poker set in the middle. There’s also a vintage display cabinet filled with white statues—a cherub, Virgin Mary, a little lamb—and wine glasses. Next to it, a tall and skinny wine rack. Zelo doesn’t care for it, though he lets his fingers graze over the poker chips.

The green ones are worth $25, that’s all he really knows.

“Let me know when you want to eat dinner, by the way,” Yongguk says, even though the clock says it’s only noon. “I wasn’t sure what you’d like, so I made some shrimp pasta salad.”

_Oh, that’s fine! I like shrimp._

Zelo stares at him blankly for a few seconds, not sure how to say that he knows he likes shrimp when he’s never had it before.

“Okay,” is what he settles on saying. “Can I read one of your books?”

Yongguk smiles at him, teeth blaringly white and his gums showing. It’s cute. “Sure, which one?”

“Surprise me.” Zelo smiles back with a shrug, sitting on the edge of the couch.

Turns out, Yongguk has lots of good books. At least it seems like he does, because it takes forever for him to pick something out.

In the end, he decides on a thick hardcover book. It’s a deep pine green with gold linings. When he hands it off, Zelo sees that there’s a very pretty dragon on the cover, with scales shaped like hearts that somehow just look right.

“[T](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14014314/chapters/32274273)he Dragon Prince,” he reads off the title.

“It’s about a prince who goes to save a princess from a dragon, but the outcome is far from what he expected,” Yongguk tells him as he takes his place on his rocking chair again. “I don’t know if you noticed, but there’s a hammock chair just outside the kitchen door. You should read it outside. The fresh air will do you good.”

“Yeah.” Zelo finds himself distracted with reading the back. _Absolutely No Princes, Knights, or General Rescuers. This Means You._

The book seems interesting, actually. A princess who doesn’t want to be rescued? It’s a good premise.

“By the way, there’s clothes in your dresser,” Yongguk adds. “Himchan tried to give me things in your size when we were—well, yeah. You probably don’t want to spend your life in pajamas.”

Zelo looks up, tempted to smile. “Thank you,” he says honestly, before he turns and makes his way to the staircase, book in hand.

 

He gets a quarter of the way through the book, as things starts to get tense, before he puts it down. It would be a shame to get to the end so soon and not given the book its time to sink in.

He can’t stop thinking about it, though—willingly pretending to be trapped somewhere because you’re unhappy with what other people decided your life should be.

If he were a prince, he thinks he’d do the same.

 

Next morning, Zelo is just waking up from dreamless sleep—seven o’clock almost on the dot—when he hears the front door open.

Strange, he thinks. Did Yongguk leave at some point without him noticing? He does seem to be a quiet person, it wouldn’t be too far-fetched if he slipped away without waking Zelo up.

But no, that can’t be right. Heavy footsteps follow the closing of the door, and Zelo is fairly certain that Yongguk was treading lightly the whole day.

Suddenly, his heart starts to speed up—an uncomfortable feeling settles in his shoulders, and he tenses them instinctively. He can feel it in his lower back, too. His hips and his legs, his wrists and his neck. It takes effort to sit up in bed and not just cower under the covers.

There’s footsteps again, followed by something…falling? Something hits the ground, or maybe multiple things. It’s loud and sounds like it’s against the kitchen tiles, accompanied by the rustling of plastic. Whoever’s down there lets out a sigh of relief.

Zelo realizes that’s definitely not Yongguk. Their voice, he can already tell, is more nasal that Yongguk’s. It’s deep, but with a weird inflection to it.

The footsteps pad across the floor, but there’s no telling where the person is or what they’re doing. It’s even harder to tell when birds stop of the tree outside his window and sing, unintentionally distracting him.

And then, the music box starts playing.

He furrows his eyebrows; why would an intruder play the music box?

Moving as slowly as he can, Zelo gets out of bed with his eyes locked on his door. He winces when the floor creaks, but keeps going anyways.

Thankfully, the hinges don’t squeak when he opens the door.

He keeps his arms on the railing as he goes down the stairs, putting his weight on them so the stairs don’t creak as he goes down. But his heart is hitting his ribs so hard that he thinks whoever’s there will be able to hear his blood rushing and the way his chest rattles.

When he reaches the bottom, he walks straight to the living room’s archway and peers around it, half his body hidden by the wall.

There’s a man standing there, facing the bookshelf and winding up the music box again as the melody starts to fade. Zelo stares at his back.

It’s not Yongguk.

This man has broader shoulders and thicker, fuller hair that’s ashy blonde and not black. He’s got an overcoat on that goes to his thighs, a clean white unlike his tight dress pants and leather shoes, which are black.

 

It’s a terribly familiar image.

Zelo’s mind jumps out of his control and over to his first memory, like a frog slipping between his fingers and escaping him.

 

In the blink of an eye, he’s back in that _thing_ , with the red fluid around him, and if he looks down he sees men dressed in white coats staring up at him with fascination and greed in their eyes.

He doesn’t know why, but it feels like spiders are running up his skin. Dozens of them, some on his legs and the others on his arms, his back, his chest—rapidly moving up to his neck. His senses take over him; he’s not even thinking and he can’t possibly know that he’s not.

Zelo just sees the white coat, and remembers. He hears his pulse in his ears and feels his heart moving up his throat as the spider-like feeling reaches his neck.

Unwillingly, his mind focuses and he can practically feel each individual spider leg walking on him. It’s uncomfortable—he instinctively moves his hands up to his neck to chase the sensation away, but his trembling fingers make it hard to get a grip on himself. 

His fingertips feel numb and freezing; when did the room get so cold, anyways? He’s sweating, and yet shivering still. It’s like he’s running through snow, out of breath and gasping in cold air that dries out his throat. And it’s so _painful._

At the sound of his breath speeding up, the man whips his head around in surprise.

Time freezes.

For a second, Zelo can think again. But all that goes through his head is that he knows this person. The round eyes, the small nose, the lips like fluffy clouds—he _knows_ these features.

Recognizes, maybe even remembers. He doesn't know.

As fast as it came, the thought is gone and all he sees is white coat, white coat, _white coat._

This person is one of _them._

He should run, shouldn’t he? But his legs won’t move when wants them to. All he can do is stare and tremble.

“Are you okay?”

It takes too long for Zelo to register that the words were coming from the stranger. His voice sounds so innocent, almost childish with genuine concern dripping out of every syllable. It forces Zelo’s guard down until it’s too late.

The second that hands touch his biceps, his body suddenly starts functioning again, kicking into overdrive.

 

Everything goes black for a moment, Zelo doesn’t know how long.

 

But when he can see again, his back is pressed to the wall and he’s sitting on the floor with his knees pulled up, the strange man kneeling next to him and stroking his hair comfortingly. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands at first, keeping them close to his chest. He clenches his fists so tightly that his knuckles turn white.

_White coat._

"Get away from me." His words come out in a hoarse whisper, and he whimpers. Breathing the dry and cold air is excruciating—makes his mouth throb and draws the metallic taste of blood onto his tongue. He feels bile tickle the bottom of his throat.

The hand in his hair pauses, but doesn’t leave, as if the stranger hadn’t completely heard the words. Sprung by fear, Zelo lurches forward and shoves the stranger back as hard as he can, repeating the words in a scream that stings his own ears.

And then, near-silence. The only sound after they both hit the floor is Zelo’s panicked gasps. He curls in on himself, lying pathetically on the floor, not wanting to look up and see the stranger.

He just anticipates the moment that he’ll be grabbed again. Will he be dragged by the ankles? Straddled and held down? Knocked in the head hard enough that he passes out and can’t struggle?

Tears prick his waterlines and force themselves down his face. He barely even realizes he’s crying, only managing soft mewls that he can't hear through the ringing in his ears.

Not even five seconds after he falls back—although it feels like an eternity—he feels thunderous steps rushing down the stairs that shake the floor. They stop abruptly at the bottom, and someone says something in a voice that sounds like Yongguk’s.

“I think he just freaked out when he saw me,” the stranger says. “I don’t know why he screamed—is he going to be okay?”

Someone’s hands pull at him, and Zelo nearly lashes out before his eyes fall on Yongguk, kneeling next to him and looking at him with confusion and worry.

Having Yongguk next to him relaxes him a bit—despite not really knowing him.

He sighs in relief, heart still pounding.

The stranger comes into his vision again, kneeling next to Yongguk but keeping slight distance.

Time freezes again, and familiarity strikes him like lightning. Seeing Yongguk and this man next to each other zaps him in the head with déjà vu.

“Are you okay?” Yongguk’s voice makes time move again. “Youngjae’s not going to hurt you; calm down.”

“Is he having a panic attack?” the stranger—Youngjae, that name sounds familiar—asks, not tearing his eyes away from Zelo.

Yongguk shrugs and runs a hand over Zelo’s hair. “Get a blanket,” he says, pressing his palm to Zelo’s face. “He’s freezing.”

As Zelo blinks, Youngjae gets up and disappears down the hall, most likely going into the storage room that Zelo discovered from brief exploring the day before.

Yongguk doesn’t say anything—no questions, no comments, nothing. He just waits and runs his hand over Zelo’s head, watching him intently.

When Zelo hears footsteps coming back, Yongguk nudges him and eases him into a sitting position. A blanket gets draped over his shoulders without anything saying anything, and then he’s coaxed back against the wall as he wraps the blanket around himself. It’s nothing heavy, but it’s warm and soft like fur, a dark grey colour.

Zelo looks up—there’s no trace of the white coat, just a black dress shirt that’s slightly unbuttoned.

“Put away whatever you brought in,” Yongguk says to Youngjae. Immediately, the other opens his mouth to protest, but gets cut off before he can speak. “He needs time to calm down.”

Youngjae hesitates, biting his lip and looking over Zelo, but he disappears into the kitchen soon enough.

Zelo feels himself coming back as his breaths slow down. The air is normal and warm again, and the weird sensation on his skin is swept away by the blanket.

“Deep breathes, it’s okay,” Yongguk mumbles. “It’s okay.”

 _It’s okay,_ he repeats to himself in his head. Himchan left him with Yongguk, he’s safe with Yongguk. If Yongguk is okay with this Youngjae person, then that means this Youngjae person isn’t going to hurt him. It’s okay, _it’s okay._

Sure, it takes a few minutes that feel like years, but Zelo calms down enough to focus. His face feels puffed up, and his hands are still shaking, but he can think and breathe fine. That’s what matters.

“What’s wrong?” Yongguk asks tentatively.

Zelo inhales through his mouth before he speaks, trying to keep himself steady. “I’m sorry—I,” he says, voice cracking. “I saw the white coat, and I thought of—when I was-”

Yongguk shushes him, noticing the tears gathering in Zelo’s eyes. He wipes them away as they fall, smiling softly like he understands what Zelo's trying to say.

“Youngjae is my friend,” he explains. “Himchan’s friend, too. I’m sorry, I should’ve told you about him. He pretty much lives here.”

“Not legally!” Youngjae yells from the kitchen, startling Zelo.

Yongguk chuckles, patting his shoulder reassuringly before looking towards the kitchen archway. “You buy all my groceries, spend most of your time here, and have your own bedroom. You live here, as far as I’m concerned.”

Youngjae walks out just to stare at Yongguk, unimpressed. “We’ve been over this a thousand times,” he chastises, but ends up smiling. It disappears when he looks at Zelo. “Are you okay?”

“Your white coat made him think of, you know…” Yongguk trails off as realization takes over Youngjae’s face. “It’s my fault; I forgot to tell him you’d be coming over.”

“I’m sorry I pushed you,” Zelo mumbles, curling in on himself slightly and looking down at the blanket wrapped around him. “I just-”

“Don’t apologize,” Yongguk and Youngjae say at the same time. They stare at each other blankly for a few seconds, before giggling to themselves.

It makes Zelo smile, too, as his eyes start to dry and his body stops shaking.

Youngjae’s cute, actually. His giggle is like sunshine caught in a cookie jar. His hair looks as fluffy as cotton candy, and the way he bends over as he laughs is precious.

He’s decidedly not terrifying.

“I’m sorry for scaring you, Zelo,” he says, walking over as Yongguk helps Zelo stand up. “Well, I’m Youngjae-”

“-I told him that-”

“-and I’m the reason Yongguk hasn’t starved to death yet,” he introduces himself proudly, patting Zelo on the shoulder as if he hadn’t just been shoved by him a few minutes ago. “Again, sorry for scaring you. Really.”

“It’s fine.” Zelo’s voice comes out wavering, making it difficult to sound convincing. Admittedly, he doesn’t think his fear is going away anytime soon—it’s settling in his stomach now, and it feels like it won’t want to leave for a while.

He’s fine, though. The heavy, sinking feeling isn’t something he thinks he can’t deal with.

“I’ll take you to town to make up for it,” Youngjae suggests with a strained smile. “You shouldn’t stay cooped up in here, anyways.”

“Absolutely not,” Yongguk forcibly interjects. "He shouldn't leave the property."

Zelo turns his head to look at him with wide eyes—why does he sound so angry?

“He just got here yesterday. You don’t think that Himchan’s old coworkers are panicking right now?” His voice is surprisingly calm for the amount of stress in his words. The feeling in Zelo’s stomach gets heavier, and a guilty look clouds over Youngjae’s face.

“We’re far from Milan, though,” he argues stubbornly.

“That doesn’t matter. They’re probably looking everywhere for him. Himchan, too. Maybe you can take him out in the future, but it’s not safe right now.”

Youngjae huffs, looking between Yongguk and Zelo.

“Fine,” he grumbles. “Whatever. I brought breakfast, c’mon.”

 

Zelo feels like he might vomit.

_"They’re probably looking everywhere for him.”_

What if, just what if, it wasn’t Youngjae who he found in the living room?

He can't help but imagine all the horrible possibilities.

 

"Is everything alright?" Youngjae asks with a mouth full of bacon. Zelo snaps his head up meeting worried eyes. "You've been staring at your plate for like, five minutes."

With Yongguk and Youngjae both looking at him like concerned parents, Zelo wants his sweatshirt to suddenly swallow him up and let him disappear.

"I'm fine," he lies. "Just lost in thought."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey so if you like this you should totally follow me on [tumblr](https://gogomato.tumblr.com) haha amirite kids?
> 
> also comments and kudos are my sustenance but unless your username is onlystraightforjongup you're not legally obligated to leave them so don't worry


	4. safety

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> school has been CRAZY and will continue to be crazy so writing is gonna be slow for a while. please bear with me.
> 
> jae is probably my fave character in this already and he's just fucking great and deserves better than what i do to him
> 
> also, i forgot to thank becca last chapter, but she's been helping me with some of my wording and i love her and you guys should read her hogwarts au because i'm too mad at her to read it

Something is suspicious inside the house, driving Zelo to sit outside. He wouldn’t say it’s a bad feeling he gets, but being inside the walls comes with a persistent thing nagging at his mind. Like sipping a coffee with not enough sugar in it, and being unable to find where the sugar bowl went.

The fresh air helps, somewhat.

“Hey, handsome.”

Zelo looks up from his place in the hammock chair, wrapped in a fluffy blanket over top of his clothes. The late November chill isn’t as bad as it could be, not with the afternoon sun blaring in his face. He was just sitting down to read the next quarter of his book, didn’t expect a conversation. Especially not from Youngjae, who he just met a few hours ago.

“Hi?” he says unsurely. Youngjae stands over him, now wearing a thick mocha-coloured coat instead of the white one he came in with. It makes Zelo feel a little guilty, but the way Youngjae snuggles into the oversized collar makes it look more comfortable. The texture is like fur, but Zelo doubts it’s real.

“I know Yongguk said to not take you to town,” Youngjae bounces on his heels anxiously, “but it’ll start snowing really soon, and he didn’t say I couldn’t take you around the fields, and I think it’s a good idea to get you out and about.”

Zelo can’t help but tilt his head at that. “What do you mean?”

Youngjae steps forward and lowers his voice to a mere whisper, as if Yongguk can hear him from wherever he is—probably on his rocking chair. “Wanna go horseback riding?”

“Why?” Zelo asks. He folds the corner of the page he’s on—about halfway into the story—and lets the book fall shut.

“If we go before it snows, it’ll be less of a hassle,” Youngjae adds, then smiles. “I meant it when I said you shouldn’t be cooped up here. I want to take you to do fun stuff, and I think you’d like riding horses.”

Zelo considers it— but then considers what Yongguk said, that people might be looking everywhere for him like cats stalking their prey, waiting to ambush him when he comes out from his hiding place. That if he leaves this place, he’ll be pounced on and caught between strong claws before he gets a chance to run.

From the house, he can see for miles in every direction through the windows. He can hide in the storage closet under the stairs—or under one of the beds while someone drives the pursuers away.

In an open field, he can’t hide. He can run away for as long as he needs to, but they’ll always see where he goes. They’ll wait for him to tire out, and strike when he’s vulnerable.

The thought makes his skin prickle more than he’d like to admit.

“Maybe we can go in the spring?” Zelo suggests tentatively. He feels bad when Youngjae’s smile falls in an instant, and questions for a moment if he’s being irrationally paranoid. “I’m sorry-”

“Hey, you don’t need to apologize for anything,” Youngjae cuts him off. “I get it if you’re scared after what Yongguk said—I mean, _I_ would be. And I normally never get scared.”

Something tells Zelo that it’s a complete lie, but he doesn’t try and challenge it.

“Oh, good book choice,” Youngjae says, walking closer to run his fingers over the cover. Zelo can see the slight dips where his fingertips go over the gold ridges. “Yongguk got that one for his birthday a few years ago, I think. He’s got a thing for fantasy and politics—fucking nerd. What part are you at?”

“About halfway.” Zelo shrugs. “When they go to the other kingdom and the prince is being really nosy.”

“Ah, he’s in a real pickle, isn’t he?” Youngjae smiles. He looks like he’s itching to sit down, bouncing childishly. “When people are in tough situations like that, it’s hard to know if you’re making things better or worse. It makes us doubt our gut feelings. But if you ask me, you should always go with your gut. Better yet, try to think rationally about the situation, and just give yourself reasons to believe in your instincts.

“I had a few friends like that,” his voice lowers to a whisper, a forlorn look in his eye. “You learn a lot from people like that. I think it’s a good philosophy to have, if you ask me.”

Zelo stares up at Youngjae in wonder, awkwardly trying to form a response about his opinion. It really just seems like terrible life advice, but something about Youngjae’s smile gives it more sense.

“Seems like good advice,” Zelo comments after a beat, wishing he had a coffee to sip right after just to punctuate his point.

Youngjae’s smile shrinks a bit, like the foam melting into a café latte.

“Well, that advice is why you’re here right now.” He looks away from Zelo as he says this, instead watching a little robin peck at the grass not too far away. “So I’d hope it’s good.”

Zelo doesn’t know what to say to that, or to the bittersweet way Youngjae’s lips curve upwards. It’s uncomfortable. That persistent nagging feeling of suspicion comes back. Instead of wanting to avoid it, though, Zelo finds his mind scrambling to find the sugar bowl—desperate to fix whatever has Youngjae looking so sad and bitter.

He freezes, though, when Youngjae looks back at him. His ears catch the sound of the robin chirping before it flies away, tiny wings flapping. It catches Zelo’s eye when it lands behind Youngjae, watching them curiously.

“It’s getting cold, isn’t it?” Youngjae sighs as the wind blows in. He notices Zelo staring behind him, and turns to look at the robin. “All this will be covered in white soon. I wonder why some of the birds haven’t migrated south yet." The bird flies away, towards some trees in the distance. "Then again, I don’t know jack shit about birds.”

He turns to look at Zelo, as if he expects him to be able to explain.

Zelo shrugs, pulling his blanket tighter around him.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s midnight when it happens.

Zelo blinks his eyes open, groggy from sleep, only to realize he’s being dragged across a grassy field. Strong arms, he doesn’t know how many, grip his own and haul him along.

 

He screams, ear-piercing and filled with fear.

How did he not wake up when they took him? Why now?

 

Frantically, he jerks his arms, but they don’t move at all. He digs his heels into the ground, so hard that grass and wet soil come up and get caught between his toes.

It’s uncomfortable and cold, hurts his feet and tears at the back of his ankles. It’s completely useless, too. The people pulling him are inhumanly strong, not bothered at all by his resistance.

He tries to lock his ankle and anchor himself to the ground. But it only serves to kick the dirt up, and he flinches when it hits the back of his bare thigh.

 

The arms around his suddenly disappear, letting him crash into a patch of purely damp soil with no grass to keep him clean. He yelps in surprise at the collision, curiously grasping some of the dirt in his hand. It sticks to his skin, to his hips and his waist-

He jerks up into a sitting position when he realizes he’s naked. He whips his head around, desperately looking for something to cover himself with, or somewhere to hide.

There’s nothing, no one around him. Just a seemingly endless field, shrouded in the darkness of the night.

 

“…Himchan?” he asks into the open air, as if Himchan will just suddenly appear. “Yongguk? Youngjae?”

He tries to stand, only to slip and fall back down. The skin of his arm catches on a rock, making a decent-sized cut. Zelo doesn’t feel any pain in it yet, but winces at the sight of his blood.

“Himchan?” he says, more forcefully than before. “Yong-”

When he turns to look around, whoever were holding him return, and he’s being dragged across the field again.

 

His heartbeat pounds. He’s terrified, his breaths erratic, hands clenching uselessly. He can feel his heartbeat in his neck and his wrists, and he can hear it in his ears. His nose feels stuffy—blowing it doesn’t do anything to relieve it.

Screaming out Himchan’s name, over and over, relentlessly, he keeps one heel on the ground while bringing his other leg up to try and cover himself. He gasps every few seconds when his body tightens in need for air. But he shoves that feeling down for as long as he can, dragging out every scream in hope that he’ll be heard.

It’s impossible to not cry; tears stream down his voice as he calls out for Himchan, shrieking so loud that his throat dries up. Some droplets land on his thighs that are pressed together in shame.

The pressure on his cut arm makes it throb in pain, and another rock gets the back on his ankle, right on the bone. Before he can lift his foot up, dirt crawls into it, stinging cold against the warm skin and blood.

 

No matter how much he calls, the people dragging him don’t react. His voice doesn’t even echo. As his eyes adjust, Zelo thinks he sees the cottage in the distance.

Yongguk and Youngjae are probably inside, sleeping. He screams their names instead, praying that they’ll hear and come looking for him before it’s too late.

The night is frigid, wind blowing against his uncovered skin mercilessly. His body is covered in goosebumps, and shakes violently like tremors in the earth itself. Each scream comes with a puff of white smoke from his lips.

Slowly, as he’s taken across endless distance, the house fades out of his sight. The lights never even came on; Yongguk and Youngjae can’t hear him.

He had just gotten there, and now, he’s early been found.

 

Slumping, Zelo gives up. The cold air pricks at his face, where the tears had already stung it. His body only jerks involuntarily from sobs and hiccups he can’t help.

They throw him into the backseat of a van, slamming the door before his feet even make it fully inside. It smacks them, making pain race through his cut ankle.

Crying out, Zelo curls in on himself. Humiliation runs through him—even in the car, he’s cold, and there’s nothing he can use to hide his body. He thinks of when he was in Himchan’s van, wrapped in blankets. It was the exact opposite of now, where he swears he’s going to get frostbite on every limb and where he feels disgustingly exposed.

The people—no the single person—who had been dragging him climbs into the front seat and starts the car.

They turn around, grinning at Zelo with wide teeth and wild eyes like a hungry coyote.

 

It’s Himchan.

 

 _“You called?”_ he says, wickedly. 

Zelo feels his heart stop. His ears pop and start to ring loudly.

 _“You really thought we’d just let you go?”_ Himchan says. _“You’re an experiment, remember?”_

As arms seem to come out of the seat behind him, Zelo screams again.

 

Except this time, he screams himself awake.

His body convulses as it’s greeted by the warm light of the lamp on his bedside table, slightly blocked by a figure lying next to him. Automatically, his eyes close again, and he sinks into the pillow and mattress below him. He’s wearing clothes. There are sheets over him.

He’s warm, he’s covered, and he’s safe.

It takes him until his breathing calms down to realize this. All the while, someone’s hands soothe him—one runs through his hair and gently scratches his scalp, the other rests on his neck. There’s no pressure, but a thumb goes across his jugular rhythmically. He recalls how he had felt his heartbeat in that vein moments ago, how uncomfortable it was when he couldn’t pull his hands down to hold it. This hand makes it bearable while his heart settles down.

He doesn’t know how long he stays in one place before he feels like he has a grip on his body. It feels like forever.

A shiver races up his spine. Shuddering, he whimpers quietly and turns onto his side, facing whoever’s next to him. They’re warm, and their hands are gentle. It’s almost maternal.

“Hey, you’re okay,” they whisper, and Zelo opens his eyes, not having realized he ever closed them. Looking up, he sees Youngjae propped up next to him, only partially illuminated by the light stuck behind him. “You’re safe, it’s okay.”

His voice is ungodly soothing, and reminds Zelo of how sleepy he is. But Youngjae coaxes him to sit up, fixing the pillows behind him. Zelo can’t help but stare at him, not missing how his eyes look glossy.

“Why were you screaming?” Youngjae asks. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

Zelo is smacked with the realization that he just had a nightmare, and he feels his cheeks flush involuntarily. He can’t look at Youngjae anymore, instead casts his eyes to the comforter, pretending to be fascinated by the various patterns.

The shades of blue are just _so_ fascinating.

“Okay, we won’t talk about it,” Youngjae says after a beat. He sounds slightly disappointed, only making the embarrassment Zelo feels plummet further, reaching his stomach. “Don’t worry, you’re safe. It was just a nightmare.”

After a prolonged moment of silence, only filled by Zelo’s breathing and Youngjae’s hand stroking the back of his neck, Yongguk walks into the room with a glass of water and something clenched tightly in his other hand. Something else hangs from his fist—it disappears from sight when Yongguk sits on the edge of his bed.

He holds the glass of water out to Zelo, and Youngjae grabs it to bring it closer. “Here,” he says, nudging it against Zelo’s lips.

Carefully, he reaches up and holds it with both of his hands, which still shake slightly. He drinks it in small sips, sighing at how good the water feels against his raw throat. All the while, Youngjae whispers to him reassuringly, but the words all blur together.

“Is he okay?” Yongguk asks Youngjae. Zelo keeps his eyes on his drink—Youngjae doesn’t say anything, and Zelo doesn’t want to see if he nods or shakes his head.

“We’re here for you.” Yongguk scoots up his sit next to Zelo’s knees, cross-legged, resting a hand on Zelo’s thigh. It feels familiar, though he can’t place it. “Nothing bad will happen to you here, okay?”

Zelo nods, taking another sip of water before he notices that he emptied the glass quicker than he thought he would. He doesn’t have anything to say to that. Lifting his head up, he glances around the room. The door is there, the dresser and the mirror, the window. A robin sits on the ledge outside the glass, and Zelo only sees the slightest movement of its chest as it breathes.

Yongguk snaps his fingers at him and he looks over. In Yongguk’s hands, there are a golden crucifix and a long rosary, similar to the one on the kitchen door. Unlike the pure white kitchen rosary, this one is made of deep blue beads lined gold and has a picture of Virgin Mary from which a gold cross hangs. It reflects in the lamplight, practically glowing.

“I usually keep this by my bedside to ward off bad dreams,” Yongguk explains while holding out the rosary. Youngjae takes it and puts it next to the lamp while he talks. “I don’t really pray or practice religion, but I grew up with it. And I think it’s good to believe in something.”

As if sensing how awkward Zelo feels, Youngjae moves an arm up around his shoulder and pulls him in, using his other hand to take the glass away and put it on the bedside table. His chest is comfortable, or maybe it’s just his sweater. Maybe both.

Zelo almost laughs when he thinks of how he went from being terrified of Youngjae to cuddling up to him in less than a day—there’s something inherently affable about him. Zelo doesn’t think he could resist him even if he tried.

Yongguk, too. It’s almost like he already knows them, knows that he can trust them for some strange reason. As weird as it is, Zelo won’t question it when they’re all he has.

“And this crucifix,” Yongguk continues, making Zelo shift to be able to look back at him, “is just something I keep. It's the one I said I stole from a church with Himchan when we were kids; I can’t look at it without thinking of him.”

Zelo blinks, processing this new information. He wonders how close Yongguk and Himchan were, and where Youngjae fits into this equation.

“You were calling out Himchan’s name in your sleep, I don’t know if you realized that, but,” Yongguk smiles sadly, holding out the crucifix. This time, Youngjae doesn’t grab it. “If you want, you can keep this with you. You can think of it as having a bit of Himchan with you.”

Zelo stares at it for a moment, considering reaching for it, but shakes his head. “It’s okay,” he says softly, voice more rough than he thought it would be. “It’s yours. Keep it. I don’t want it.”

He doesn’t let Yongguk—or Youngjae—respond, just closes his eyes and makes it clear he wants to sleep rather than talk.

 

It's quiet for a long time. Zelo almost succumbs to sleep, engulfed in warmth, until their whispers stop him.

"He's had a rough day," Yongguk says. "I'm going back to bed. C'mon."

"No, I'll stay with him. In case he has another nightmare," Youngjae answers.

 

There's a long pause where nothing happens. Eventually, he feels the bed shift and hears Yongguk leave. He clings to Youngjae’s shirt when he tries to move and give him space. Youngjae doesn't fight it, hugging Zelo close and running his hands over his back.

It’s not fair to them if he wants to cling to someone he only saw for a few brief moments.

“…Youngjae,” he whispers, eyes closed.

Youngjae hums. “You okay?”

Zelo nods and presses his face into Youngjae’s chest. “I’m excited to go horseback riding in the spring.”

He doesn’t see Youngjae smiling, but he hears it in the way he talks about what it’s like to be on a horse, racing with the wind.

Youngjae says it makes him feel as free as a bird in the sky.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i rushed proofreading this so im sorry for any typos
> 
> also i dunno when the next chapter is gonna be so please be patient!! 
> 
> i love you guys for reading this and for dealing with infrequent updates, and also for leaving such nice comments ♥


	5. awake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm back. after a month. jesus fuck.
> 
> school was crazy in the last month and i've honestly just spent the first two weeks of summer getting all my energy back, looking for a job, etc...
> 
> plus inspiration for this chapter was super dry. i think there's always a chapter in fics that's impossible for writers to get passed and this was it. but! i got through it, eventually. so i'm back now and hopefully updates will be weekly or slightly more frequent than that.
> 
> thank you for waiting!

The days collect themselves like dust in the drawer where Zelo keeps his letter from Himchan, still sealed and untouched. The most he can do is stare at it in wonder—he can’t open it, not yet.

Snow has started drifting down from the sky, sometimes languid and sometimes in the form of a blizzard. If not for the fireplace crackling away every morning, the house would be too cold to handle. Zelo bides his time flipping through the books Yongguk keeps.

“So, this book,” he says to Yongguk one morning. They’re eating cereal, and the sun hasn’t completely risen. Youngjae is still sleeping. “I think I don’t like it.”

Yongguk’s eyes flicker back and forth between the golden dragon on the cover, and Zelo’s face. “Why not?”

“Well, the author just missed the mark towards the end.” Zelo pauses as Youngjae stumbles into the kitchen with his shoulders sagging, not asleep after all, and goes straight for the coffee pot. “I guess…the runaway prince—his character was just lost towards the end. It felt like he lost everything that made him a cool character.”

Yongguk hums and smiles. “You noticed that, too,” he says. “I agree. They have some better works, but I like the world they built in this one. For a first attempt at fantasy, they really got the atmosphere right, didn't they?”

Zelo moves on to read about girls with passion for cooking, men who lose their culture and their sanity in the heart of war, and an immortal family.

All of them have such strange outlooks on life compared to one another. The joy, the torture, the hope, the loneliness, and the sense of belonging everyone longs for. He knew it all before, but now that he thinks of it, he doesn’t understand what life ends up becoming for normal people, or for people like him.

“You’ve got all the makings of a cool protagonist,” Youngjae told him after he finished three books in two weeks flat. “Dramatic backstory and all. You just have to figure out what kind of adventure you want, and that’ll determine who you are.”

It’s weirdly philosophical, coming from Youngjae’s mouth. Then again, Zelo keeps discovering the oddest things about him and Yongguk that they might as well be two sides of the same coin.

 

Yongguk catches him one afternoon, holed up in his room. He’s spread across the floor with a book in his hand, staring intently at the words. He only looks up when he’s startled by a plate hitting the ground next to his head.

He looks at it first—garlic bread, celery, baby carrots—then looks up and sees a tender smile.

“Let me know if you need anything, okay?” Yongguk says, and Zelo nods.

As he walks out the door, Zelo’s stomach rumbles and he realizes how hungry he’d been.

 

He feels like they’re spoiling him, discreetly.

 

“Can you help me shovel the driveway?” Youngjae asks sheepishly, once in the evening. He’s dressed head-to-toe in winter gear, making him look like an overstuffed teddy bear. “Lord knows Yongguk’s not going to leave his chair until he runs out of shit to scrawl in his notebook.”

“Sure,” Zelo says, closing the second book he’s on. He rolls himself out of bed and follows Youngjae downstairs, immediately headed for the coat closet under the stairs.

“Wait, I got them already.”

Zelo turns around and sees his coat, scarves, mitts—everything bundled in a pile by the door.

He starts walking, only for Youngjae to grab his hand and lead him over for some unnecessary reason.

Zelo watches as Youngjae reaches down and grabs his coat for him, and moves compliantly when Youngjae slides his arms through the sleeves for him. Like a child whose parent is bundling them up.

He zips up the coat for him, too, and hands Zelo his mitts to put on himself. He gently tugs the toque over Zelo’s ears, and wraps his scarf around him with care.

When Youngjae steps back, Zelo can feel his cheeks heating up. He doesn’t know if it’s from the look of tenderness on Youngjae’s face, or from the warmth of all the fabric on him.

“Alright, get your boots on,” Youngjae says as he slides his own gloves on. “Let’s tackle this bitch.”

 

They take good care of him. Like he’s their son, or something.

And it comes to them so naturally.

 

Call it impossible, but Zelo feels like he’s known Yongguk and Youngjae for longer than just three weeks. He isn’t surprised by anything they do even if he hadn’t expected it, and he finds his heart swelling when they do the smallest things for him.

Call it wishful thinking, from how much he’s been reading about the extraordinary, but Zelo thinks it’s fate.

They’re like his family already. Zelo feels safe with them; untouchable.

 

A week ago, he had walked into the kitchen in the morning only to find no Yongguk, no Youngjae, but a sticky note next to a saran-wrapped plate of bacon, eggs, and french toast.

_(We’ll be out the whole day. Dinner is in the fridge. – YG)_

They hadn’t told him they had any plans.

Zelo made it work. He spent the day reading, but he felt bored without annoying interrupting him. He stared at the snow falling outside—he almost went outside to build something, but laziness dragged his bones over to his bed instead.

He napped. He ate dinner. He read a poem book he found on the bookshelf. He stared at his own face in the mirror and memorized what he was made to look like; he went as far as having a small existential crisis about potentially being made of plastic. But that ended as soon as he slapped himself in the face and felt the nerves tingling and saw the surface of his skin turning red. Then, he just got bored again.

It was lame.

But then they were home the next morning when Zelo woke up.

Youngjae didn’t smile all day. Yongguk was somehow quieter. Zelo felt like he was brought back to his first day with Yongguk, feeling like an intruder in the small house. Like he was in the middle of a scene that he wasn’t written to be in.

Now, it hardly feels different.

“Is Youngjae okay?” he asks Yongguk after dinner, as they do the dishes together. Youngjae barely ate, didn’t even try to hide it, and went to hide away in his room the moment they started cleaning up.

Yongguk frowns and shrugs. “Don’t worry about it.”

Zelo worries about it.

There’s this weird pull in his chest whenever he sees the sad and lost look on Youngjae’s face, and when he doesn’t even attempt to smile. It hurts like hell.

He can’t ask about what the _fuck_ happened on the day that they were both gone—he knows he’s not going to get an answer. All he can do is try to not make anything worse.

“There’s just a lot he’s going through,” Yongguk mumbles, as if Youngjae might hear him. “It’s been hard lately—he’s not handling it all that well.”

Zelo feels his heart sink into his stomach. “Oh.”

It went unspoken, but Yongguk is hurting, too. All the signs are there. He talks as though Zelo can’t tell that he’s been distant, too.

It makes Zelo feels even worse.

For some reason, he feels like their melancholy is all his fault.

 

* * *

 

 

Zelo doesn’t know how long he stays up. It feels like hours upon hours pass by, but sleep escapes him. He debates hitting himself hard enough in the head to knock himself out, or stealing a melatonin tablet from Yongguk’s medicine cabinet. He’s sure Yongguk won’t mind if he does.

Or, he could just stay up all night and suffer.

Groaning, he rolls over and turns on his lamp. Warm light coats the room; he looks at the little clock on his bedside table—one that he found while tearing the room apart to see if he’d find anything cool. It takes him a moment to read the hands. 2:35 A.M.

He groans again and shifts onto his stomach, smothering his face in his pillow. After a few seconds, he realizes he can’t breathe like that, so he flops back over and stares at the ceiling.

The crickets outside are too loud. His eyes feel all warm and weird. Life is just generally unpleasant in this moment.

He considers reading Himchan’s letter, but decides against it. It wouldn’t help him. If anything, it’s better to just forget it exists, now that Yongguk and Youngjae have firmly planted themselves as special people in Zelo’s heart.

His mind starts to drift more and more, now that their faces have popped into it. Their smiles are nice—Yongguk’s being wide and gummy and Youngjae’s being adorable beyond compare. So soft. Everything about them is soft. Including their chests. Zelo could just snuggle up to them and lay his head right where one’s heart is, and arms would circle around him and-

Shit, now he just wants to be cuddled.

He turns back to the clock at reads it again. 2:37 A.M.

Is it too late to go ask if he can sleep in their beds? Probably. He doesn’t feel like being a bother.

But he just can’t sleep.

And that’s when he feels it—his stomach growling and caving just a little bit. He should go downstairs and get food; what’s in the fridge, again? Probably leftovers. The hashbrowns in the freezer only take about twenty minutes. The mug cake packets only take a minute or two.

Decidedly hungry, he rolls out of bed. 2:40 A.M. And he’s making the very poor decision of not forcing himself to sleep.

Careful to not wake Yongguk and Youngjae, Zelo tip-toes at a snail’s pace, taking much too long to just get across the room.

He makes it out the door, that’s good—but he’s distracted quickly

Light is coming out from underneath Yongguk’s room, and quiet sobs can be heard coming from inside. It sounds like Youngjae—the door to Youngjae’s room is open, and it’s empty-

Zelo swallows, his saliva feeling like tar.

It’s rude, and he shouldn’t do it, but he walks up and presses his ear to the door.      

He hears Yongguk first, speaking lowly but loud enough that Zelo can hear him over the sound of crying. “Youngjae, it’s okay-”

“It’s not fucking okay when my best friend is fucking dead and I can’t get the fuck over it!”

Zelo flinches at the sudden yelling. His stomach lurches in discomfort and guilt, for some odd reason.

His hand hovers over the doorknob, but he pulls it back.

“Shh, Zelo’s sleeping…” Yongguk’s voice is calm, but firm. Youngjae’s cries become more muffled—are they hugging? “Hey, the funeral’s over, the only thing we can do is continue with our lives, like he’d want us to, right? He wouldn’t want to see you like this…”

“And what about Himchan?” Youngjae’s voice cracks. “What about Jongup—he hasn’t talked to us, even at the funeral he didn’t even look at us—it’s like, it’s like it’s all falling apart and I’m going to lose you next-”

Zelo feels his heart stop—Jongup, Jongup…Jongup? The name makes his head and heart throb. He knows that name from somewhere; was it in a book he read? No, he thinks about it, it wasn’t. A headache quickly spreads across his forehead, making him feel disoriented. The more he hears that name in his head-

A phantom sensation makes him shiver. Something on his hips…like hands?

He hears Yongguk sigh through the door. “You still have me-”

“It doesn’t matter!” Youngjae says, contradicting himself. His breaths are loud and panicked, uneven and littered with pauses in-between where Zelo knows he’s swallowing. “We’re never going to have the five of us together again—I thought losing Himchan would be bad enough but now Daehyun’s fucking _dead_ and Jongup won’t talk to us and now it’s just us and it’s never going to be the same again and it’s like I’m losing everyone and I miss them so fucking much-”

Zelo’s vision gets so blurry he nearly falls over, letting out a small gasp. He knows Youngjae’s sobbing—Yongguk’s not saying anything—but it fades into the back of his mind.

All he can focus on is this pain in his head that’s getting stronger and stronger. It’s almost like it’s desperate to be felt, begging for acknowledgement of some kind.

That name caused it, it had to have. Daehyun— _Daehyun_ made the pain get worse than when it was just Jongup. He feels so dizzy—his heart is trying to break out of his ribs—his nerves tingle and shivers run up and down his spine, back and forth. He’s shaking uncontrollably, eyes blown wide.

What the fuck?

Daehyun, Daehyun, _Daehyun_ …

It repeats like a mantra in his head, and when he tries to focus on the sound of Youngjae crying it only gets louder.

That, and a strong urge to throw the door open and engulf Youngjae in a suffocating hug. Saying over and over—Daehyun. _It’s okay, I’m here._ Daehyun. _There’s no need to cry_. Jung Daehyun.

A particularly loud noise, a cross between a wail and a whimper, brings Zelo back for a moment. But all he feels is guilt, as if it’s his fault that Youngjae is crying so much.

It’s Daehyun’s fault, for being dead. Daehyun. Jung Daehyun. Jung Daehyun. No, it’s Zelo’s fault— _feels_ like his fault. His fault, not Daehyun’s—Daehyun’s, not his—his and Daehyun’s— _their_ fault that Youngjae’s crying—his fault that-

Zelo takes a deep breath and tries to will his mind to shut up. Just tune into the sound of the crying, nothing else. His head must hurt from not sleeping.

There’s something more important than sleeping right now, though.

“I don’t even want to live anymore,” Youngjae sniffles. “I can’t—Daehyun was my best friend-”

Zelo grimaces as he puts a hand to his forehead to steady himself. His skin feels like it’s burning.

“Don’t say that you don’t want to live anymore,” Yongguk says, sounding urgent. “Daehyun was my friend, too. So is Jongup. And Himchan’s my best friend. I know how you feel.”

Is it normal to feel like your brain is trying to pull you into a room? Zelo doesn't think it is.

“Well Himchan’s not a fucking _corpse,_ is he?” Youngjae spits. He’s loud enough that if Zelo had been sleeping, he would’ve woken up. “You _don’t_ know what it’s like to touch your best friend’s _dead fucking body_ in a casket, and they don’t have a fucking head, and they feel like a doll and you feel like you’re hallucinating because you can see their chest rising and falling but it’s not and—you _don’t_ fucking know what that’s like, you asshole-”

“Jae, calm down-”

Zelo thinks he hears the sound of someone being slapped, maybe pushed away forcefully? He can’t tell.

“Just leave me the fuck alone, Yongguk!” Youngjae yells, and that’s when Zelo makes up his mind. It wins, this time—he lets his shoulders slump and his eyes fall half-shut before he reaches for the doorknob.

“Jae-”

“ _Just leave me the fuck alone!_ ”

Swaying slightly, Zelo opens the door to Yongguk’s room, and immediately feels like he’s been smacked across the face by the sight in front of him.

Youngjae and Yongguk are frozen in place—the former breathing heavily.

He’s read about it, a cracking sensation in his chest—that’s heartbreak—that feels like your body is being ripped in half. He had thought it only comes from losing true love, and he had pushed it to the back of his mind as something he’d never have to worry about.

But when he sees the tears running down Youngjae’s face, his chest heaving, and his eyes red and puffy, Zelo feels something inside him cracking open. As if he’s known Youngjae all his life. As if he needs to take responsibility for Youngjae’s feelings.

He doesn’t realize that he hasn’t said a word until Youngjae hangs his head and Yongguk talks. “Oh, Zelo.”

“Um…” There’s nothing to say. At least, nothing he can figure out how to say on his own, not with his mind racing with so many thoughts.

“Go back to bed,” Youngjae murmurs. “Just, go. Go back to bed. You don’t have to see this-”

Zelo is on autopilot. One moment he’s at the door, and the next he’s on Yongguk’s bed and he’s pulling Youngjae onto his lap. Tears and hot breath are hitting his shoulder, hands are gripping his shirt, and he has so many thoughts that he can’t think. Rather than resisting, he lets them get stuck in his head while his impulses take over.

Not like he has much choice in the matter.

He vaguely feels Yongguk slide up next to him against the pillows. He doesn’t need to, anyways.

“It’s okay,” he whispers into Youngjae’s hair. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

Youngjae breaks down. The floodgates are open, and it’s lucky that they’re so far out in the countryside that they don’t have to muffle anything. But Zelo tries, anyway. He puts a hand on the back of Youngjae’s head and holds him so close to his shoulder that he feels his shirt getting slightly damp.

“They—he worked with Himchan and he, was supposed to break you out go to America with him, we—we were so excited to do something _good_ ,” Youngjae frantically tries to explain. “But he went missing and he—and Himchan left and then his body turned up—it came up in a river and his head was _gone_. And there were marks all over him like someone, someone just-”

Youngjae cuts himself off with a choked breath. Zelo pats his back and runs his hand up and down his spine, pulling him as close as he possible can. He’ll wait for as long as Youngjae needs him to.

“We don’t know who did it.” Youngjae exhales. As vulnerable as he seems, Zelo can still hear the anger in his voice. “I want to fucking murder them and I just want him back—he was everything to me—I spent my whole life with him and now—I just—you shouldn't have to see me like this but I feel like there’s nothing anymore-”

 _It’s okay_ , Zelo wants to say, _I’m still here_.

It stays locked in the back of his mind, though, as he holds Youngjae like something precious.

His head hurts a little less when Youngjae’s pressed against him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> really though i still hate how this chapter turned out but eh what else is new?
> 
> also this wasn't proofread sue me
> 
> THIS CHAPTER WAS SPONSORED BY CAPTAIN OBVIOUS


	6. christmas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...
> 
> well it's been a while
> 
> at first i procrastinated writing this, but then when i tried i got writer's block and then i went into a slump--i just did not have the willpower to write this and im sorry. honestly im surprised that i managed to get it done when the last few days have been... less than great
> 
> but luckily this is an uplifting chapter! yay! i mean, it's terrible but at least it's positive?
> 
> so yeah

For two weeks, they don’t talk about it.

Zelo never tells them about his headaches, and how it’s like there’s another voice in his head trying to break through. He doesn’t want to be a burden. And they never bring up the fact that Youngjae sometimes comes in with tear stains still visible on his cheeks and large water stains on his knees.

But things feel more open, now. Zelo knows all five people in the photos on the second floor. Now, Youngjae and Yongguk tell him all about their adventures as a group of university friends taking on the world together.

When they recall a story of Daehyun and Jongup getting locked in a store because they’d been making out in one of the bathrooms during closing, Zelo feels his head trying to split in half. When Youngjae talks about how he and Daehyun grew up together and used to spend every weekend gaming and trudging through homework interchangeably, the pain nearly grows too much to withstand.

Despite this, he’s still drawn to the photos on the walls like the arm on a compass.

Even though looking at the way Daehyun and Jongup’s bodies press closer together makes his skull ache, even though hearing their names in conversation now makes him reach for ibuprofen when Yongguk and Youngjae aren’t looking, he’s getting better. The more it happens, the less it hurts, like whatever’s inside him is starting to give up.

It's relieving, but it doesn't help him understand why it's even happening in the first place.

 

The day it disappears is the day they bring out all of Yongguk's Christmas decorations. There’s no tree—apparently, they’ve never actually celebrated out in the countryside, so he’s never needed one—but there’s a bunch of bobbles and lights to litter the cottage with.

They decorate the interior, and it’s uneventful aside from Yongguk sneezing a bunch from the dust that comes off the boxes stored deep in the storage closet.

It’s when they get outside, though, that the subject of Daehyun comes up. Just from Youngjae—as Yongguk’s inside making hot chocolate for them. His hands steady the ladder while Zelo puts the fairy lights up around the edge of the roof.

 

Maybe it’s because it’s so cold out, enough to make their toes go numb within minutes, that Youngjae’s words bite in the same way that the air nips his cheeks.

“This used to be Daehyun’s job,” he says. “We’d all go around decorating each other’s houses and he’d always do this part because the rest of us were scared of heights.”

Whatever’s in Zelo’s head stays quiet, and he steps down without falling. “You all lived in different places?” he asks as he lifts the ladder and moves it over. Half the lights are done so far.

“Yeah. Yongguk and I have our own places but Daehyun lived with Himchan and Jongup,” the other explains, quietly. He’s no help in the decorating process, mainly just standing by to make sure no accidents happen. And apparently this job includes making uncomfortable conversation, too. “But that house is being sold—Jongup’s sister told me he’s moving in with her now after all that’s happened.”

Zelo pretends to not hear the voice crack, and tries to not pay attention to the tug in his chest at the mention of Jongup. He wonders what’s taking Yongguk so long.

It isn't a conversation he wants to have, but when he comes back down the ladder, Youngjae keeps going. 

“He hasn’t talked to us since the funeral,” he says. He leans his forehead against Zelo’s shoulder and sighs. “And it’s hard to talk to Yongguk about it.”

Awkwardly, Zelo reaches around with his other hand to pat the back of Youngjae’s head. He’s not quite sure what he should say.

“Jongup just had to let go of Himchan and lose Daehyun at the same time,” Youngjae sighs again. “But I’ve known Daehyun all my life and I knew Himchan just as well as he did. And Yongguk’s known Himchan all his life and knew Daehyun well, too.”

Somewhere in the midst of his words, he ends up with his forehead against Zelo’s chest now, and with his arms wrapped around his waist. Zelo hugs him back, a little stiff. He's just trying his best.

“I just—I don’t know if he knows that we’re hurting too,” Youngjae says, muffled by his scarf and the other’s jacket. “And I miss him.”

Zelo bites the inside of his cheek, rubbing Youngjae’s back slowly. “Just call him?”

Youngjae makes a sound of discontent. “He probably won’t pick up.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Trust me, he won’t,” Youngjae’s tone turns dark and he chuckles humorlessly. A shiver runs up Zelo’s spine like a lightning strike. “He’s never been very fond of communication. Especially if something’s kinda bothering him, so-”

“So go to his sister’s house and kick down the door and drag him out,” Zelo insists and squeezes him a little bit. “If you want to talk to him, just do it. If you think he needs you guys right now, why aren’t you going to him? It’s not hard.”

Youngjae pulls his head back and stares up at Zelo with furrowed eyebrows. “You’re too smart for someone who’s like, a month old,” he deadpans. “What kind of books have you been reading?”

“Shut up,” Zelo blurts, and talks before his brain can catch up to his mouth. “Daehyun would want you to go to Jongup.”

It’s a typical thing to say—yet it makes Youngjae’s face soften. He exhales heavily, calmly, in contrast to how Zelo’s heart starts to race.

“…You’re right,” Youngjae admits. “Yeah. He’d probably say the same shit you’re saying. Except he gives better hugs—you’re too tall.”

Zelo frowns and pulls Youngjae to his chest, squeezing hard enough to suffocate him, as revenge. “I can’t help that I’m tall!”

Youngjae makes inhuman noises, a mixture of laughing and gasping, as he shoves himself out of Zelo’s grip. Something about it makes Zelo feel happy, in a sadistic yet fond way that he can’t quite explain.

“You’re an asshole,” Youngjae grumbles, stumbling and try to not fall on his ass.

Zelo’s laugh is loud enough to travel across the countryside.

Yongguk comes out with their hot chocolates, and snowflakes start to land in their hair.

 

* * *

 

Snow falls, and falls, and falls some more. The windows are like ice when Zelo presses his fingers to the glass, drawing hearts in the frost.

Youngjae starts to make stew more often, now that winter is settled in. They eat dinner by the fireplace. Yongguk wraps himself up in blankets as he reads or writes in notebooks. Zelo finds an acoustic guitar tucked away in the storage room—and finds he likes how the strings feel under his fingers.

He’s surprised when Yongguk tells him it’s Himchan’s, and he remembers that the letter in his dresser is still untouched. Rather than opening it, though, he finds online guitar lessons and tries to teach himself how to make music.

The pure white all around them is calming, the fire is warmer, and Christmas is just in a few days.

When he’s on his bed, strumming a tune he’s been practicing while he waits for supper, Zelo decides he loves winter.

 

* * *

 

He dreams of nothing.

The black nothingness is nice to him as he starts to wake. His bed is so cozy and warm, so easy to sink into. He’s really been living in a paradise all this time.

He starts to slip back to sleep-

-but his door slams open with so much force it practically shakes the room, the crack of the doorknob hitting the edge of the dresser scares the ever-loving fuck out of him. The light flickers on, too slow to keep up with the rapid-fire events.

“Merry Christmas!”

Youngjae and Yongguk yell in sync and give Zelo no hope of going back to sleep.

It’s one thing right after another in quick succession. The yelling, then he’s being slammed back into bed and tickled—because apparently they couldn’t tell he was already awake and needed to make his life even more hellish that it already way. Are they blind or something?

Zelo groans, wriggling around. The warmth of his comforter is gone, pulled away, and everything feels cold and gross as his sides are attacked. He catches a glimpse of Youngjae and Yongguk’s smiles.

Eventually, their assault stops, leaving them giggling and Zelo panting. The sun isn’t up yet.

“Merry Christmas!” Youngjae repeats.

Zelo echoes him, and let’s himself sink into the bed again, now with the other two pressed next to him. It’s warm and cozy—not just around him, but his heart feels it, too. Even through the lingering sensation of being brutally tickled.

“We have a present for you,” Youngjae says, standing up from the bed. “Hold on, I’ll go get it.”

When he runs out of the room, Zelo waits for a moment and then looks to Yongguk in confusion. He doesn’t need to say why; they never set up a Christmas tree, and a lot has happened in their lives recently, so he figured that they weren’t doing gifts.

Not that he’s mad about getting gifts, or anything.

As if reading his mind, Yongguk smiles. “We both agreed to not do gifts,” he says, “but we both tried to surprise each other by getting gifts anyway. And we wanted to get you one regardless.”

“What did you get?” Zelo asks, more eagerly now that he’s starting to wake up. His eyes are heavy and his deep craving for coffee kicks in.

“He got me a new notebook—I got him a new lens for his camera.” Yongguk pulls himself to sit up, crossing his legs. “We’re both pretty happy with it.”

Zelo mimics him. “Youngjae does photography?”

Yongguk just smiles wider, in a way that’s slightly eerie. “You haven’t noticed?”

Before he can ask what he means, Youngjae comes back into the room bearing a small package in one hand and three mugs on a tray in the other. It gives Zelo a rush of anxiety before he puts it down on the bedside table, moving the lamp and clock slightly to make it fit, before handing each one of them a mug. The package finds itself dropped on the bed, and Zelo stares at it with suspicion.

The wrapping paper is dull brown and lumpy, held together by thick strings tied around it. It looks authentic and like it truly belongs in their home.

He looks back and forth between it and the cinnamon and cocoa powder dusted over the foam of his coffee. Somehow, both remind him of the heat whenever he sits directly in front of the fireplace.

“Well?” Youngjae fidgets, sitting down on the edge of the bed next to Zelo’s ankles. “Aren’t you gonna open it?”

“Don’t rush him,” Yongguk scolds him.

Zelo puts his mug down on the tray and takes the gift into his hands. He fondles the paper, but can’t figure out the shape of whatever’s inside—it feels too strange. There’s plenty of give as whatever’s inside succumbs to the pressure from his fingers, but only on one side. The other side is like a solid brick, though definitely not that heavy or hard, and makes a flat surface when he presses the paper into it. The crinkling sound annoys him more the longer he tries to figure out what’s inside.

Curious, he yanks the strings off the package and neatly unfolds the paper on his comforter.

He finds a cream-coloured teddy bear with a gold locket around its neck, and a fresh hardcover copy of _The Secret Garden_.

“Open the locket,” Youngjae urges. Yongguk smacks his arm, and he smacks back petulantly.

He carefully unravels the chain from the bear’s neck. The actual locket is gold, light in weight, and has roses intricately carved into it. Something a grandmother would likely own.

When he unclips and opens it, he sees two tiny pictures on either side. One of him sitting at the couch with Yongguk, the other taken through the window when he was outside putting up lights with Youngjae. Obviously taken when he wasn’t aware of a camera being pointed at him. Both in soft black and white.

They’re reminiscent of the pictures in the hallway, he thinks.

“Thank you,” he says, coughing unintentionally. “I didn’t think you’d get me anything…”

“Well, it’s offensive that you don’t have a teddy bear. Most people do,” Youngjae insists. “Actually, we were only going to get you the locket, but then Yongguk saw a copy of _The Secret Garden_ and he insisted that we get that, and then when we passed by a gift shop he saw the bear in the window-”

“Youngjae, stop,” Yongguk groans.

“And he thought it was just the _cutest_ thing he’d ever seen and he went up and shook its hand, felt its fur—it was embarrassing,” Youngjae continues anyway. “So now you’ve got a locket. And a book. And a bear.”

“I did not do anything embarrassing like that,” Yongguk says. Youngjae rolls his eyes. If Zelo’s being honest, he doesn’t believe Yongguk at all, not with how he’s obviously forcing himself to keep a straight face.

When he takes another sip of his coffee, he notes how balanced it is. The perfect amount of sugar and milk, topped with the cinnamon and cocoa, just feels so right to his taste buds. Maybe the Christmas spirit is getting to him, but it might be the best coffee he’s had thus far.

 

Maybe it’s because right now, everything seems to fall into place.

He feels normal, waking up well-rested and with two people who take time every day to care for him. It’s not something he’s ever taken a moment to truly, fully acknowledge—but they never had to take him off of Himchan’s hands. They were never obligated to.

And yet they did, despite the potential consequences.

He can’t take that for granted.

It feels faded and distant, like the slightest trace of a silhouette through a foggy meadow, but if he strains hard enough he can reach the memories of the laboratory that are slowly repressing themselves. He remembers what if was like to float in cold fluid and stare through the glass. Conscious but unable to move.

Cold and stillness—compared to now, when he’s warm and surrounded by motion. Yongguk and Youngjae laughing with their whole bodies with smiles on their faces, compared to the stiffness of the scientists whose expressions were blank.

He’s really taken it all for granted, hasn’t he?

The food, the home, the books, the guitar—he’s blessed and lucky to have it all. And he feels overwhelmingly thankful for it all, now. He’s tempted to just grab Youngjae and Yongguk and hug the life out of them.

Too shy to say anything, Zelo just curls up with his coffee and new teddy bear and listens to Youngjae animatedly retelling their misadventures while Yongguk’s face flushes full of red.

When they get to a bit of an argument about what happened on their Easter trip four years ago, Zelo turns over the copy of _The Secret Garden_. He’s heard Yongguk mention it once or twice. It looks like a cute little classic.

He slips it into his bedside drawer, covering Himchan’s letter.

Christmas seems like a good time to read it, but he chooses to listen to Youngjae’s heated anger put against Yongguk’s calm insistence.

 

_“I literally have video proof that you walked right into a helpless child-”_

_“No, you don’t.”_

_“You can’t hide from your demons—give me back my fucking phone!”_

 

It makes him happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember to leave comments and kudos to help ya boi actually find it within himself to write this shit


	7. sleep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter probes a few things:
> 
> 1\. stories do not need to have proofreading if you really don't give a fuck  
> 2\. chapters can be compilations of bullshit and softness if you can manage to pull it off
> 
> anyways this chapter makes me soft bc when i first planned out hearth LITERALLY 11 MONTHS AGO WTF i was most excited about this chapter, and also it kinda parallels buttkiss (which i need to update, I KNOW) in some ways 
> 
> i hope y'all like it :))))

Yongguk had said that Youngjae bought him a new notebook and, as the day after Christmas and leading up to New Year’s begin to unfurl, Zelo comes to realization: Yongguk keeps an ungodly amount of notebooks—not one, or two, or three, but a plethora of little notepads and larger journals and school-sized notebooks seem to appear everywhere.

Of course, they were always there, but now they’re so noticeable that they attract attention in every room.

The living room has them on the fireplace mantel, on the bookshelf, coffee table, between magazines, in the end table drawers, and when Zelo looked under the couch just to convince himself there weren’t so many, he found two more. There’s six in the living room alone and he finds three more on the kitchen counter. He even dares to walk into Yongguk’s room and snoop, feeling guilty all the while, and finds six more, including the new one.

It’s not like he’s buying them and then just not using them. Their pages have dog ears and crinkles from being well-used. Yongguk must have started getting them years ago, and for some reason deemed them all worth keeping, leaving them strewn across his entire house.

Does he have some sort of addiction? How has Zelo not noticed it before?

When he thinks about it a bit more—as in, when it bugs him so much that he can’t fall asleep—he also realizes that Yongguk writes. A lot. He sits on his rocking chair and sometimes reads, but usually stares at a notebook, rhythmically writing things out in pen. Sometimes he pauses to watch the fire for a bit, or stare out the window, and then he goes back to scribbling words.

What is he writing?

Zelo sits up and turns on his lamplight, and rubs his heavy eyes. The clock reads 2:50 A.M. His room feels like a castle of ice, since they can’t leave the fireplace on when they’re all asleep.

He wishes he had a puppy to cuddle with. Or a person. But he can’t just wake Yongguk or Youngjae up at nearly three in the morning.

Sighing, he flops back down on his pillows and shifts around until his sheets are tucked around his body, locking out all the cold air.

Should he ask Yongguk about the notebooks? No, that would be weird. He could ask Youngjae—except Youngjae might tell Yongguk, and even if he doesn’t it’s still a weird question. And if he casually remarks that there’s many notebooks, it’ll seem either dumb—because how did he not notice them earlier?—or suspicious—what of it?

Who’s he to judge how many notebooks someone has?

Still, it gets stranger the more he thinks about it.

Yongguk lived alone, with Youngjae only occasionally coming around before Zelo arrived. Zelo knows that.

Yongguk lived alone, and he sits in his rocking chair in front of his fireplace, and he has a ton of notebooks filled with some kind of writing. He mostly writes, sometimes reads, and sometimes looks like he gets lost in thought. He had Youngjae bring him groceries and sometimes cook for him, too.

Yongguk is quiet, caring, wise, and knowledgeable. Zelo never needed to be a genius to figure those things out. And he’s seen Yongguk’s arm tattoo, sometimes even a glimpse of his chest tattoo. But why would he really acknowledge tattoos? They’re just drawings. Now, he wonders what those strange black-and-red letters on Yongguk’s chest might say.

It’s all becoming very, very strange.

The man who’s taken him in is more mysterious than he lets on.

Really, Zelo had been planning on starting _The Secret Garden_.

But maybe there’s a better secret story in his own home, that’s been waiting for him.

For now, all he can do is try and sleep.

 

* * *

 

The morning of the 27th proves itself to be stressful. Zelo feels lucky that he doesn’t really have anything to do, because on a measly three hours of sleep, he doesn’t think there’s much he really can do. It makes him briefly consider getting a job—until he realizes that he doesn’t actually exist within the system, and that’s too much of a pain to think about.

Living his entire life as some enigmatic ghost seems a lot more appealing than figuring out to not-suspiciously make himself a member of organized society.

Besides, Yongguk seems to be doing it just fine.

Zelo’s eyes don’t leave him for the entire morning. There’s something about the way he carries himself, like he’s just floating across the floor. He takes up space, but moves so quietly that it takes a few double-takes to confirm that he’s actually there, at least now that Zelo’s watching him so closely. He makes no sound—maybe just very, very little sound—when he walks. His movements all have grace to them.

“You’re quiet this morning,” he says to Zelo, cocking his head to the side. “Are you okay?”

“I didn’t sleep much,” Zelo replies—it’s not dishonest, necessarily. He takes the opportunity to stare at Yongguk’s eyes, which are wide and sunken, tired. His irises are practically black, and shiny, too. Almost unnaturally so.

The couch they’re sitting on feels more uncomfortable the longer he looks into those eyes. His coffee tastes too sweet.

Yongguk reaches over and ruffles Zelo’s hair gently, and the skin on his fingers is soft. “It’s only six,” he says. “You can take a nap. I’ll wake you up at nine?”

Against his body’s wishes, Zelo shakes his head. “I’ll just drink more coffee.” He smiles, even though it probably looks strange with his heavy dark circles that he can feel. “I was going to practice guitar today,” he lies.

“You sure?”

“Mhm.”

Yongguk looks like he wants to argue, but just exhales heavily and says, “Okay.”

The conversation drops off naturally—Zelo’s thoughts make it feel tense and awkward, though. He stares at Yongguk’s hands as they reach and grab a notebook and pen off the coffee table, and as the elder begins to scribble something on the page he flips too.

“Actually, I’m gonna go cuddle Youngjae, or something,” Zelo blurts, already standing up. A yawn forces its way out of his throat with convenient timing. “I feel like I’m dying.”

“Good idea.”

He doesn’t look back at Yongguk, and rather hurriedly dumps the rest of his coffee and jogs up the stairs.

 

Youngjae is in a giant heap of blankets when Zelo goes into his room. He doesn’t wake up completely when Zelo crawls into bed with him, only opens his eyes for a few seconds and mutters something intelligible before wrapping his arms around the younger.

Whatever sleep Zelo lost the night before, he gets back within just a few seconds.

 

* * *

 

He wakes back up before Youngjae does, and is content to just rest in the warm bed for as long as he can, before he’ll inevitably have to put his sockless feet on the cold-as-fuck floor.

It gives him time to think, with a clearer head now that he’s not as tired.

It gives him time to come up with an actually-plausible theory as to what Yongguk does with so many notebooks. And part of his brain—not the headache-causing part, thank God—tells him that it’s absolutely illogical.

But Zelo believes that anything is possible. Anything can exist. There are truly no rules to the universe—science? Physics? What are those? Just arbitrary ways that humans categorize magic so that they can pretend it’s not magic and that they know of, and are in control of, everything. That’s what.

So, Yongguk sits on his rocking chair, like, all day. Like an old man. But he’s a young man. And he spends most of his time reading, or writing. He has lots of notebooks. He stays isolated in the middle of a countryside, and just likes to space out staring at his fireplace. He has few friends, one of which essentially buys almost everything for him. But it’s paid for with Yongguk’s money that just mysteriously appears out of thin air.

The only logical reason behind why this is possible is that Yongguk is a wizard.

He has no occupation, yet he gets money—because he conjures it.

He acts like an old man because he is actually very old, possibly _hundreds_ of years old.

He stays isolated out in the countryside where no one can find him because he harbors secrets of magic and of the universe that he can’t let anyone find. He reads because he wants to understand the perspectives of common mortals on the world. He has a ton of notebooks, because Youngjae is actually his apprentice and one day he will pass all his knowledge onto him.

That’s what the notebooks contain—all the secrets of magic and the universe that must be passed down to Youngjae.

And maybe that’s why, no matter how compelled Zelo is to look inside the notebooks, he can’t. There’s a magical barrier that diverts him. Because what’s inside those books are not meant for his eyes.

Boom. He just solved everything.

It’s quite comforting to know that he’s being looked after by a wise old wizard. For all he knows, there’s a cloak over this home that keeps him safe—and could that be why Yongguk didn’t want Youngjae to take him out to go horseback riding? Was it because he still needed to teach Youngjae how to create protection barriers? Maybe.

Actually, no— _most likely_. Or even _definitely_. It’s the only explanation for how they live the way they do, seemingly never working but still thriving when they need to be a part of society.

Smiling to himself, he wiggles around until he sinks further into the mattress and warmth of the comforter. When Youngjae gets up, he’ll figure out what to do next. For now, he’s just happy that he discovered what’s really going on here.

He’s smart, isn’t he?

 

* * *

 

Turns out, he fell back asleep. Maybe not-so accidentally.

When he wakes up for the third time, it’s noon, and the bed is empty except for him. It feels a lot colder without a body next to him.

Youngjae’s still in the room, though. Zelo hears the _‘click click click’_ sound of laptop keys before he opens his eyes and sees Youngjae’s back to him, working away at his computer.

“What are you doing?” Zelo asks, slurring a bit. The light coming in from the window makes him hiss when he looks at it directly.

“Working,” is the answer he gets, after a pause in the key clicking. It picks up quickly again, though, and it’s hard to tell if it’s soothing or annoying.

“On what?”

“I’m editing a long-ass literary critique article.”

“Oh, cool.”

The borderline furious pace of Youngjae’s typing scares Zelo a little, so he doesn’t try to extend the conversation.

If he’d wanted to ask some questions about Yongguk, he’d either have to wait or just forget about them altogether in favour of going right for the jugular.

Instead of heading for his room to get his guitar and practice like he initially planned, he goes downstairs and rather confidently puts himself on the couch and stares at Yongguk, who is still sat in his armchair like he was when Zelo left him, reading a book.

The room is dark, with the curtains mostly shut and the blinds peeled back to create stripped sunlight. The fire crackles as cold air seeps in, juxtaposing the temperature in the room.

He wonders if Yongguk had stood up at all, since Zelo had left.

“I know your secret,” Zelo blurts, confidently. No turning back now.

Yongguk looks up at him, blinking with widened eyes. “What secret?” he asks, speaking quicker than usual.

It takes a lot of willpower for Zelo to not roll his eyes. “You know _exactly_ what I’m talking about.”

“Actually, I don’t.”

Yongguk closes his book—and Zelo sees the word ‘mafia’ within the title before it’s tossed onto the coffee table. How peculiar.

“I don’t keep secrets from you, Zelo,” Yongguk (falsely) informs him, with his serious voice. “If I do, it isn’t intentional.”

“I think it was intentional,” Zelo retorts. “You would need to keep your real identity a secret, after all. I’m not mad about you not telling me.”

“…My real identity?”

At first, Yongguk’s eyebrows furrow and he looks like he’s just found himself on the wrong street after walking along one path for thirty minutes. But then an amused smirk crawls onto his face, making Zelo’s palms feel sweaty.

“What are you talking about?”

“You sit in this chair all day,” Zelo says. “You read books, you write things, and you stare out the window. You almost never go outside or leave the property—you act like a grandpa but you look like you’re thirty. I’ve never seen you get angry, or sad, or frustrated…”

Yongguk tilts his head slightly. “Is that an issue?”

“No, it’s not, it’s just very _odd_.” Zelo readjusts himself, lying on his stomach with his chin propped up on his palms. “And very _suspicious_.”

“So?”

“So, I know what you are-”

“Please, no Twilight references.”

Zelo stares at him, deadpan. “That wasn’t supposed to be a Twilight reference, but okay—I know what you are.”

Yongguk responds with nothing more than an expectant stare. It only makes Zelo more confident and certain that he should expose that he knows the truth.

“After running a few calculations,” he says. “I have come to the conclusion that you’re a wizard, Yongguk.”

If there was a definable emotion that encompassed the feeling of amusement, confusion, and betrayal—Zelo would be able to say that he’s feeling it. Instead, he has to individually identify those three feelings in the same moment that he’s trying to explain to himself why Yongguk covers his face and laughs.

“Okay, Harry Potter references aside, I do know that you’re a wizard.”

He must sound pretty serious, because Yongguk stops laughing and looks at him like he suddenly grew two heads—while still partially smiling. “What?” he asks.

“I know that you’re a wizard,” Zelo repeats.

Yongguk continues to act as though he has absolutely no clue what’s going on, and now a third head must be popping out. “Why the hell do you think I’m a wizard?”

“Because you’re terrible at hiding it?” Zelo furrows his eyebrows and then sighs, exasperated. It would be a lot easier if he’d just admit it. “You act like you’re ninety-five but you look twenty, you sit and stare at a fire all day, you live in seclusion, you sustain yourself without a job, you have all these filled notebooks lying everywhere and you write in one every day for a long time, you’re always calm—you even have an apprentice! It couldn’t be clearer if you were named Merlin, or something.”

Yongguk smirks at him, and his eyes seem to twinkle slightly. “But do you know what I write in those notebooks?”

“Probably, like, the secrets of the universe or something,” Zelo says, shrugging. He still makes a point of staring right into Yongguk’s eyes, trying to make his point. “Also, it makes sense if Himchan brought me here because you’re able to protect me with special powers-”

“Zelo,” Yongguk cuts him off, stifling laughter. “I’m not a wizard. I’m an author and I just don’t like going outside.”

“No, shut up, that’s not as cool as you being a wizard.” Zelo shakes his head fervently. “Also, you can’t just write in a notebook and submit that.”

“I stay up later than you, because I type up whatever I write,” Yongguk explains, still chuckling in a way that’s starting feel almost mocking. “And Youngjae edits what I write.”

“Shh, _no,_ you’re a wizard,” Zelo insists. He isn’t going to let Yongguk ruin this for him. Not now, not ever. He’ll just have to accept the fact that he’s a wizard.

If there exists technology that can stitch him together and give him life by whatever means, there needs to be magic to balance it out. That’s how things are supposed to work, ideally.

“No, I’m an author. But I admire your creativity and your imagination. I think I need to write that down somewhere,” Yongguk says, plucking his notebook from the coffee table—since when was it there?—and a pen along with it.

“This is illegal.”

“I’m not stopping you from believing that I’m a wizard,” Yongguk says calmly. “I have no problem with you thinking that. But I should’ve told you earlier that I’m an author—I wasn’t trying to hide anything from you.”

“You’re trying to tell me that the tattoo on your chest isn’t just some giant rune that makes people not-realize that you’re not getting older?” Zelo asks skeptically.

Once again, Yongguk laughs openly, before scrawling something into his notebook. “It isn’t—but that’s a _really_ good idea. I hope you don’t mind if I use that for a character.”

“But if you used it for a character, you’d be giving away your secret.”

“Oh, true. True.”

There’s no reason to continue the conversation—or rather, there is, but it takes Zelo too long to think of a continuation to justify saying it. He watches Yongguk scribble words onto pages rapidly, and feels warmth spread through him at the thought that his weird thoughts could inspire someone.

That same warmth is like a fist punching him in the gut when his mind drifts a little far into existential territory again.

If Yongguk really is an author, and he really turns the ideas that Zelo had into a book—that will be the mark Zelo will leave on the world. Proof that he doesn’t exist without a purpose, because it was his thoughts that created something.

“Hey,” he murmurs, and Yongguk looks up at him. “Will you really make a character out of that?”

He must look childlike, pouting and wide-eyed, because Yongguk beckons him closer. He wiggles over to the end of the couch, where the older can reach over and ruffle his hair. “Probably, why?”

Zelo shrugs. “Just wondering,” he says. “What will you name them?”

He settles into the couch, laying on his side with his head on the armrest while Yongguk’s fingers tangle in his hair. The light filtering through the blinds in strips moves across them languidly, as the breeze from the open window shifts the curtains. Dust floats in the air like glitter.

Time might have stopped, just to maintain the calm of this moment for them.

“I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll name them after you.”

“That would be a bad idea,” Zelo mumbles and sighs, letting his eyes fall shut. Today seems to be a day full of sleep. “You’re Himchan’s friend. If they saw, they’d know.”

“…Okay. Let’s not think about that.” Yongguk’s fingers dig into the back of his neck, sending tingles down his spine. “I’ll pick a Roman god, then. The character would be an immortal, or someone long-lived, right? I’ll name them Aion, then.”

His words are followed by more pen-scratching.

“You’re not falling asleep again, are you?” he chuckles.

Zelo’s out before he can answer.

 

He wakes up ten minutes later, he’s confused, as it felt like ten years, and Yongguk is no longer in the armchair.

He closes his eyes, and tries to sleep again, but it never comes to him.

Perhaps time isn’t actually moving, or maybe he’s just imagining it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also follow me on [tumblr](https://gogomato.tumblr.com/) bc im rad
> 
> have a good day/night wherever you are and thank you for reading ♥


	8. snowflake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is the definition of "well that escalated quickly" but i don't even care bc i feel like it works and sometimes it just be like that
> 
> im sorry this took so long but hey if you read my shit you clearly don't care about frequent updates
> 
> so, enjoy

“You’re horrible at spying on people, Zelo.”

“Sorry,” Zelo chuckles, moving into the room now rather than shyly lingering in the doorway. Even as he gets closer to where Youngjae is working at his desk, he can’t make out much of the words on the screen. It’s an endless stream of black scribbling that increases steadily as Youngjae types at full speed. “Is this another article?”

“Nope. Blogpost,” Youngjae replies, chipper. His eyes don’t shift their focus. “It’s a bit of an essay on what makes us human, mostly in comparison to artificial intelligence and how we can trust that robots and humans will still be distinguishable from each other in the future—all that super fun stuff, you know?”

Zelo doesn’t know. Or rather, he doesn’t think it’s very fun. “You should talk about whatever I am,” he says. “And cloning. How to tell clones apart from the original. That’d be cool, I think.”

Youngjae swivels around on his chair and looks at Zelo as if he suggested that cats are actually mutated dogs. “I’m about two thousand words deep into robots already, so no” he says critically. It makes Zelo squirm, feeling as though he’s being judged. “And also, you really need to get out of the house. This can’t be good for you, can it? I don't think it is.”

“I go outside all the time-”

“Really, not what I meant. Not what I meant at all—I need to take you into the city soon,” Youngjae rambles. He sighs, turning back and clicking some more keys on his laptop, and then dragging the mouse over to save his work. Zelo finds that the clicking noises are distracting. “I have to leave later because my parents want me to go back to them for New Year’s, but seriously,” he turns back to Zelo, staring deadpan at him, “when I get back, I’m taking you out.”

“That sounds like a threat,” Zelo jokes and forces a smile. Youngjae doesn’t reciprocate it.

“Because it is,” he says.

He stands up, angrily, and grabs Zelo’s wrist—also angrily, but still being gentle. One moment they’re in the room and the next they’re going down the stairs, Zelo insistently led on by the fingers tugging him forward.

“What are we doing?”

“Going outside for some air.”

With his free hand, Zelo grabs the railing and puts his weight down through his feet, keeping himself planted on the last stair just as Youngjae reaches the bottom. The older nearly stumbles when he tries to walk forward, and looks back at Zelo with poorly-concealed frustration.

Despite his height, Zelo feels very, very small.

“I don’t really want to go into the city,” he mumbles, looking down. “I thought we were going to wait for spring.”

The lines on Youngjae’s face soften, and he squeezes Zelo’s wrist reassuringly. At least, it feels like it’s meant to reassuring—something seems slightly off in Youngjae’s posture. “I _told_ you—I have to leave later. There’s no time to take you to the city even if I wanted to drag you out right now,” he explains, letting go. “I just want to take you outside—for some air? We can build snow forts? Snowmen? I don’t know, I just think we could both use some fun right now.”

“Oh, let’s make snowmen!” Zelo suddenly smacks his hands together, grinning childishly. “We can do snow forts when you get back—then we can get Yongguk in it and have a big fight and have hot cocoa after-”

The older chuckles and cocks his head to the side. “So, snowmen?”

“Snowmen.”

Youngjae tugs Zelo’s coat off the rack and helps him put in on as if he were a small child, ignoring his protests. It makes Zelo feel patronized, but the way Youngjae smiles and pats his head gives him a warm feeling spreading all the way out from his abdomen.

He moves on to his own coat, and Zelo’s eyes find the window.

Outside, the sun shines deceptively bright, with skies as clear as they would be in the midst of summer. Zelo thinks, for a brief moment, that he should be longing for summer to come around faster. He’s only ever lived in a cold and cloudy world—how would it feel to run barefoot on the grass, to sweat and let his skin absorb the heat of the sun? He could welcome the wind with open arms and see, with his own eyes, the same bright flowers that he dreams about.

Ideally, at least.

He should be dying for summer. But there’s something he enjoys about Youngjae making him bundle up, or sitting by the hearth of Yongguk’s fireplace, that he can’t describe.

The world around him may not be warm, may be conquered by snow and grey clouds and howling winds that make the air prick like tiny fragments of ice.

But the world he’s living in is full of embers and hot cocoa whenever he’s surrounded by Yongguk and Youngjae. It’s a brighter flame than the sun, with heat that doesn’t suffocate him and light that doesn’t burn him. It’s comfortable.

Summer is a distant army coming to lay siege on him, to put him under the spotlight of the sun where everyone and everything can see, and hurl burns and blisters and oppressive humidity at him from catapults.

Zelo knows that winter is seen as dark and depressive while summer brings light and happiness, but at what point do archetypal symbols cease to convey their meanings? When too many people create their own, or when just one person does? Even before winter is half over, he can see summer’s army marching, moving like thick liquid seeping into the cracks of kitchen tiles. There's nothing bright and happy about it.

“Earth to Zelo—hello?”

He blinks, and Youngjae’s waving a hand in front of him. “There you are,” he says lowly when Zelo flinches. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just spaced out for a bit,” Zelo laughs, snorting when Youngjae lightly knocks him on the side of the head. “Can I ask you something?”

Youngjae goes still, and his gaze softens a bit. “Yeah, of course.”

“Is winter your favourite season?”

The older’s face changes again, shifting to mild confusion and then to neutrality. “No, my favourite’s autumn,” he says. “I like the colours—and it’s not too hot or too cold, like you can wear fuzzy sweaters with shorts and have barbeque but also have hot chocolate? It’s balanced.”

Zelo hums, kneeling down to do up his boots because he’d forgotten to when he started getting too into his thoughts. “That makes sense.”

“I know. Why'd you ask?”

“Just curious,” he shrugs, looks up, and smiles. Youngjae keeps staring at him with a blank face, so he grabs his hand and tugs him towards the door. “Come on, let’s go build snowmen.”

 

* * *

 

Yongguk wakes up late to an empty house. It doesn’t register at first, how quiet it is, until he gets to the kitchen to make his coffee and he hears laughter outside. Through his blurry vision and the window, he can see Youngjae and Zelo, rolling giant balls of snow onto each other.

They’re on their third snowman—and it makes sense when Yongguk looks at the stove’s clock and sees 2:43 P.M mocking him.

It can fuck off. He doesn’t need a proper sleeping schedule and hasn’t needed one since university.

He can’t hear what’s being said clearly through the window, but he can see Zelo talking, lips moving faster than what Yongguk considers reasonable. It makes Yongguk smile when the younger points to one of the snowmen and starts making hand gestures, running his mouth and so obviously coming up with a story behind the short man with a spiky hair made of snow (probably Youngjae’s idea).

It’s nice, seeing him smile.

The problem is just-

“Ah, Himchan,” Yongguk sighs. “What have you done?”

If anyone else—say, an old woman—came and dropped a pale and skinny child on Yongguk’s doorstep, he’d most likely refuse to adopt it, out of the sheer fear of not knowing if he could take care of it. But for some reason, when Himchan wants him to do it and it happens to involve the risk of committing treason and potentially suffering whatever punishment if he’s caught…Yongguk accepts. Of course he accepts.

As if he could say no to Himchan, anyway.

He’s trying. Really, he is. The last thing he wants now is to abandon Zelo. The problem is just-

Where’s he supposed to go from here? Zelo can’t stay forever. Whether he’s trapped in a good or bad place doesn’t change the fact that he shouldn’t be trapped anywhere in the first place. How’s he supposed to send Zelo off into the world when he needs to wait for Himchan’s call, and it still hasn’t come? How long is he supposed to wait?

The coffee machine whirs to life and the _dripdripdripdrip_ into the pot sings like the church choirs from when he was young. He looks back out the window, at Zelo’s smile, at the genuine happiness bursting through Youngjae’s face that might have been long gone by now if Zelo weren’t with them.

What they have is as fragile as a snowflake. If it’s left alone, it will be fine. Just one touch will make it melt.

Yongguk groans and leans on the counter, face-planting into his hands. He’s too tired for this.

“Fuck’s sake, Himchan…”

 

* * *

 

“What should we name number six?” Youngjae asks, heaving with laughter as the remnants of a snowball dampen and freeze his hair. “You get to pick.”

The same can be said for Zelo—though he’s not wheezing as much. His own throat feels stiff and dry, he can’t imagine how bad Youngjae’s must feel. They’re going to catch colds at this rate. And then Yongguk’s going to laugh at them, probably.

They’ve already assembled a small force of snowmen with strange, nonsensical names. This new one has a tomato for a nose, because Yongguk refused to hand yet another carrot through the window, saying that he wanted to roast some for dinner.

“Tomato,” Zelo says jokingly. “Wait—they all have repetitive names. Toto. Toto, mato. Totomato. That works?”

This just makes Youngjae laugh harder, gasping and hiccupping when his throat finally gives in. He looks towards the tomato nose—which is mushy and dripping because you can’t shove a tomato into a giant snowball and have it go in easily like a carrot—and only laughs harder.

It’s a wonderful sound, but his throat is dying. So Zelo takes off his scarf, without thinking too much about how cold he’ll be without it, and wraps it around Youngjae’s neck. He tugs it up over his lips and nose before tightening it and tying it off.

“Thanks,” the older says. He still heaves, and there are tears pricking the edges of his eyes. “Christ—it actually burns. Fuck-”

Zelo wishes he could help more, rather than just watch as the laughter slowly turns to pained wheezing as Youngjae tries to catch his breath. He stands back and plays with his mitts behind his back, while Youngjae leans forward, hands to his knees. Slowly, his breaths become lighter.

When he goes to stand up straight again, Youngjae’s foot slides back too far, and Zelo’s instincts push him and his hands forward to catch him before he has to eat the snow on the ground.

He ends up with his arms completely around Youngjae, somehow. He didn’t even realize his body was moving in so close, and now he’s holding Youngjae to his chest to make sure he's not going to move back and end up falling again.

And oddly enough, it comes to him naturally.

Something in the air shifts. Zelo becomes almost painfully aware of how silent everything is now that they’ve ceased laughing.

He grips the older tighter, like a child clinging to their teddy bear after a bad dream.

“Zelo?” Youngjae asks, the words muffled by his coat. He doesn’t resist the hug, though, only wraps his arms around Zelo’s waist and snuggles into him. “Hey, I’m _fine_ —are you okay?”

He hums and nods, looking over at the snowmen and their lopsided faces. They seem to stare back at him indignantly, as if asking, _“What’s your problem, man?”_

Apparently it isn’t a good enough response to not respond. Youngjae pulls back, Zelo looks at him, and for a long and awkward moment he’s trapped in eye contact with him.

Youngjae’s trying to read deep into his mind—it feels like he _can_. He’s never had time to think about it in great detail, but looking into Youngjae’s eyes is like looking into a telescope and seeing the intricacies of the night sky. And then being hit by the realization that every person is a minuscule, borderline microscopic thing in relation to the universe.

Or something, or whatever.

That—Youngjae’s eyes are an all-seeing universe, is what Zelo assumes he’s trying to tell himself. So much greater than everything else. Controlling everything, knowing everything, being everything.

It makes him feel so vulnerable. That might just be because he doesn’t quite know what’s going on in his head while he’s staring into the older’s eyes but, well, fuck it.

“Hey,” Youngjae breathes, “you know what I was thinking about when I was writing about robots? And when we were building those dudes?”

The change in the atmosphere makes Zelo’s blood run colder than the snow. Time freezes and he wonders what the hell just happened, and when it got to be so cloudy outside. It was sunny just a second ago…right?

What universe did they end up in? 

“Uh, what?”

“They don’t really get to name themselves. And I mean, humans traditionally don’t—but we can change our names whenever we want. We can have multiple. Robots don’t get that privilege. Those snowmen don’t,” Youngjae rambles, wide-eyed.

“Okay?” Zelo gnaws at the inside of his lip and squirms involuntarily when the older’s hands tighten where they’re still resting on his waist. He squeezes his shoulders right back. “So-?”

“And I thought of you when writing that, a bit,” Youngjae murmurs and still holds eye contact insistently. “I don’t know why I just remembered now when you were hugging me, but earlier I wanted to ask you—do you like your name?”

Zelo blinks and parts his lips slightly, licking over the dried-up cracks.

Does he like his name? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t particularly like or dislike it.

It’s just his name. It just kind-of exists and he doesn’t give it too much thought. He never thought he’d have to, but the way Youngjae’s looking at him is invasive and expectant, demanding an answer. So he thinks of how it sounds on his tongue, on Youngjae’s, on Yongguk’s—on Himchan’s and off of the lips of the people who created him.

He feels conflicted for a few seconds, but ultimately comes up with nothing to say.

“…I don’t know. It’s there, I guess,” he shrugs. “Why?”

“Well, I…” Youngjae trails off. He slumps a bit, and a single snowflake falls on the top of his head.

Two more follow suit, followed by many as large, fluffy snow begins to fall all around them. Slowly, steadily. With how still they are, it's as if they’re trapped in a snow globe, inside their own little world.

As beautiful as it is, Zelo isn’t looking at it. Not even a single glance.

Youngjae’s head drops down. “It’s stupid and I shouldn’t ask this because, I don’t know, I just _shouldn’t_ , but-” he breathes in deeply and looks back up, scarf falling from his face. “Himchan’s boss gave you that name, Zelo, and—I understand if, like, it’s not that deep for you, but _I_ don’t like that, and I don’t know if you like that so I-”

“I never really thought about it, to be honest,” Zelo says quietly, afraid that he’ll crack the glass of their snow globe if he speaks too loudly. A snowflake falls on the tip of his nose and melts. “You said you were going to ask me something?”

“Right, I-” Youngjae cuts himself off, and Zelo squeezes his shoulders again, reassuringly, trying to ease the tension. “…Can I name you something else?”

Zelo chokes on his breath just as a snowflake lands on Youngjae’s eyelashes, and the older blinks furiously to get it off, yet neither of them flinch or move.

Whatever’s in Zelo’s head just disappears. He doesn’t know what to think—he doesn’t need to think of anything, right now.

“…Like, what?”

“I was considering it—something like Junhong would be nice? I think it suits you,” Youngjae says. His cheeks redden more than they already have from the cold.

Zelo stares at him. “Say it again?”

“Junhong,” Youngjae repeats. “Junhong.”

Moths flap around inside his chest as though his heart is a glowing lantern. He’s never been so attuned to how his heart feels. Not just how it beats, but how it takes shape and settles under his ribs and has its place. Youngjae seems to have a way of doing that to him.

So, Junhong, huh?

It feels right. Any name would have felt right, to be honest, as long as it’s a name that Youngjae chose.

The fact that Youngjae even thought that he deserved a better name than what he was given—that makes his heart swell to twice its size and makes all the moths go absolutely buck wild around its flame. There’s no use trying to calm them down.

“You can choose your own, too, you know?” Youngjae tells him.

“No, it’s fine. I like Junhong.”

“So, you’ll be Junhong now? Just like that?”

“Yeah.”

Youngjae smiles so widely that the cold could make his skin crack and split like their chapped lips. He doesn’t seem to care or even notice, though.

 

“Okay, Junhong.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> follow me on tumblr, its gogomato. 
> 
> i also have a ko-fi now? you can commission a drabble (IF YOU DO, READ THE INSTRUCTIONS ON MY STATUS) or you could just drop $3 without a request if you wanna feel like a sugar daddy. link is here: https://ko-fi.com/G2G6L2OY
> 
> but, anyway, thanks for reading


	9. moon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> has it really been a month since i updated this holy shit
> 
> anyhow, i've been reading a certain book and its writing style is starting to bleed into mine so prepare for future fics to have non-linear structures like this chapter because fuck! 
> 
> i managed to turn this filler chapter into something kind crucial to yongguk and youngjae's characters, at least i think. lemme know if it's shit.

Yongguk stares at Youngjae and tries to telekinetically unravel him.

This, of course, is impossible. But there seems to be a trend within their circle of accomplishing what should be impossible, so he continues to try.

He’s too tired to do anything but stare, regardless. He’s always tired. Having just woken up, whatever Youngjae and Zelo— _fuck, Junhong, right, he almost forgot about that_ \- Whatever they’re saying brushes past Yongguk’s ears without going into them.

Despite this, Yongguk’s eyes see everything. The way his expression shifts from elated and loving to solemn and thoughtful seems to follow the rhythm of a slow-yet-steady metronome. And Yongguk can pick out all the little quirks that aren’t usually there.

From the twitching of his fingers, to the slight tremble in his shoulders, to his hesitance when he reaches out to put his hands on Ze—fuck, Junhong’s—shoulders. Yongguk might not be registering what Youngjae’s saying, but he can just tell after knowing him for so long.

There’s a _“don’t miss me too much”_ in there. And a _“stay safe”._ And a _“we’re going to do something when I get back.”_

_“I’ll miss you.” “I’ll be back soon.”_

Before he leaves, Youngjae pats Yongguk’s shoulder. Yongguk pats him right back while staying focused on the tension in the younger’s smile.

It isn’t—the sky is usually blue, so when it’s grey, you can tell that it’s going to rain. People aren’t as obvious as the difference between blue and grey, sun and no sun, but when you get to know someone, it just kind-of becomes like that. You can tell when things are off and what exactly is off.

It isn’t like Yongguk doesn’t know why Youngjae looks so strung-up. He knows. He knows very well. See, though, knowing things doesn’t do too much for you if you’re someone that overthinks and rarely ever actually acts on their thoughts. If Hamlet could meet Yongguk, maybe he’d stop being so insecure about is inability to act because, hey, at least he’s not _that_ guy, right?

It isn’t like Yongguk only just noticed this now, even. Heck, he was watching like some kind of stalker while Youngjae and Z- Junhong were outside. Everything. Like, really, they were right there, was he supposed to not look? Getting a roast ready for a crock pot is only so interesting—watching an emotional scene play out is, inarguably, better than the former option. He got a little distracted by it.

And Youngjae- He’s been spiralling down for a while, like he’s a kid on one of those makeshift firefighter poles on a playground, for the very first time. Slowly, slowly going down. Maybe Yongguk’s waiting at the bottom to help him get down, but that’s the thing. He’s just waiting for Youngjae to reach the bottom.

He doesn’t know how much further down Youngjae can go before he starts to fall.

His hands won’t move, though. When Youngjae says, “see you in a few days,” and walks out the door, Yongguk’s hands won’t move. They won’t stop him, grab onto his wrist, and ask him if he really wants to go—if maybe he should stay rather than humoring his parents.

Really, why can’t he?

 

* * *

 

Daehyun had been the sun, and Youngjae had been the moon. That being said, what role exactly does Yongguk fulfill?

Is it relative? When he looks at Junhong, it seems like Youngjae would be more of a sun to him, with Yongguk as the moon. But what something is in the universe has to be absolute, not relative so—Yongguk doesn’t know. Here he goes again, overthinking everything.

This should be peaceful. Him curled up on the couch with a notebook and pen, Junhong on the floor strumming the guitar he found, as the fireplace crackles and whips. Truthfully, he’s thinking more than he can write down, and he’s not even thinking of things that he wants to write down, anyway.

He writes “Junhong” on the page, then scribbles it out.

He sighs.

“So, your name’s really Junhong now.”

The younger looks up from his guitar, and his face is so innocent that just looking at it makes Yongguk feel guilt so profound it tears him inside-out.

“Youngjae chose it,” Junhong says, as though he’s trying to shift the blame to get out of a punishment.

Yongguk cocks his head to the side. “I know—do you like it?”

“I’d like any name if you guys gave it to me.” Junhong eyes him warily. His shoulders draw in. “Unless it was something stupid.”

Yongguk feels terrible, but when does he ever feel anything else?

“I think it suits you,” he says. “But you know, if you ever want a different name, you can change it.”

“I know. Youngjae mentioned that.” Junhong idly strums on his guitar, so softly that the splitting of the firewood tunes it out. “But I like it. It wasn’t something I thought of before and I don’t know why he’d think of it, but I like it. I’m happy with it.”

Yongguk hums and tries to leave it at that, but Junhong turns and looks at him again with careful scrutiny that cuts him open like a scalpel.

“You don’t like it?” he says.

“No, I like it. More than Zelo now that I know what Youngjae was thinking,” Yongguk says in what he hopes is his reassuring voice. He doesn’t know, sometimes, if he comes across as too deadpan.  “I just want to make sure you know that you can make choices for yourself. You don’t have to turn to us for permission if you ever have an idea, you know?”

“Yeah, I got that feeling from Youngjae.” Junhong turns back and strums again, and Yongguk lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “He said something about robots and snowmen not getting to choose things and I got the idea that he was trying to give me a choice.”

“Good, good,” Yongguk says with accompanying nods. He can’t think of anything else to say.

Junhong looks at him strangely. Or rather, like he’s something strange to look at. “Hey…is everything okay?” he asks. “You and Youngjae are both acting finicky…”

“I’m fine, don’t worry about me,” Yongguk says. “And Youngjae—Youngjae’s alright,” he lies.

Obviously, Junhong doesn’t believe him—his stare says it all. But he doesn’t press the issue, and simply turns back to his guitar to lightly play the chords of a song that sounds familiar and that he can’t remember the name of.

Yongguk still can’t think of anything he wants to write.

 

* * *

 

Summer nights are cold and yet so warm. The fire pit bears flames that glow and billow smoke for miles like factory stacks do. Youngjae, obscured by the embers and smoke, lets his pullover devour his legs. Daehyun has long since fallen asleep on Jongup’s shoulder, and the latter struggles to stay awake as his innate nature is to sleep. Himchan, however, is wide awake and sweating a little bit from the heat of the fire. The smoke flows right past his face, mingling with the smoke from his rum cigar and masking its scent—the likes of which Yongguk hates.

He doesn’t like the stench of cigarettes or cigars. He hates burning sage. Barbeque and the aroma of a bonfire or fireplace are all he can stand when it comes to smoke nowadays. He hates cities. Maybe he’s aging faster than everyone else.

Maybe. He drinks his whiskey in a glass with a single cube of ice that’s melted now, God should damn the fire for that. Youngjae drinks it straight from the bottle and doesn’t seem to care that his entire face is the colour of a radish.

“I’ll take the guest bed,” Himchan sighs. His fingers twitch and Yongguk can already tell it’ll be a sleepless night for him.

Youngjae, for once, doesn’t argue for the sake of arguing. He whines at the emptiness of the bottle in his hand until Yongguk goes over and picks him up like a bride—he has the blushing part down pat, at least—and mumbles incoherent sleepy nonsense into Yongguk’s collarbone.

Himchan helps Jongup put out the fire and although Yongguk busies himself with getting Youngjae tucked into his bed, Yongguk can hear Himchan lingering outside. Jongup takes Daehyun into what’s actually Youngjae’s bedroom and the lights go out quickly.

Youngjae says something like “why is your mattress so much more comfortable than mine?” but it sounds more like “ _hwyz yer mattrss smumor c’mffy thahnnnine?_ ” when his drunken slurs become muffled by the pillows. He’s out like a light. The backdoor hasn’t opened and shut since Jongup carried Daehyun in.

Although he sleeps like the dead when he’s wasted, Yongguk leaves the room quietly in case he might wake Youngjae.

Everything is so suddenly silent and void of any scent. The lights in the staircase and kitchen are on, but it feels as though everything is pitch black.

Yongguk rejoins Himchan outside, the stench of the latter’s cigar now pungent and it will inevitably cling to their clothes and seep through the entire house through the open windows on the top floor. 

“You don’t have to take the guest room,” Yongguk says. “I’m sure Youngjae wouldn’t mind waking up to you for once.”

“He’s mad at me,” Himchan argues rather plainly. He cocks his head towards the empty bottle of whiskey that’s still lying on the grass, barely visible in the light coming from the house. “And it’s not like your guest room’s a dungeon. Someone could live in there.”

Yongguk sighs. “So I’ve been told.”

Himchan glares at him and there’s a sheen in his otherwise abyssal eyes. “You’re mad at me too, aren’t you?”

“I’m not mad, just scared.” An owl hoots in the distance and the bristling of leaves echo. Without the warmth of the fire, Yongguk shivers. “I knew you weren’t kidding around for, like, six years. It’s just sinking in now.”

“So you’re saying Youngjae thought I was kidding.”

“No, just,” he breathes in deep, exhales heavy. He’s not going to fight with Himchan. He won’t. “I think he thought Daehyun wouldn’t actually go through with it and he’s, he’s…I don’t know, mad that you’re letting Daehyun in on it? Mad at Daehyun? Mad at himself? I don’t know—it’s Youngjae. I don’t know.”

“He’s such a bitch,” Himchan sneers. He tosses his finished cigar in the fire pit and takes another one out. The faint glow from his lighter makes the red on his cheeks obvious. “He’s so fucking moody.”

“Go to bed, Himchan,” Yongguk says. Himchan takes one long, indiscernible look at him before huffing and throwing his cigar in the pit without even using a bit of it. When he walks past Yongguk, he deliberately knocks him in the shoulder.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, almost mockingly.

Yongguk stares up at the windows and waits until he sees the lights in the guest room go out before he goes back inside, taking all their trash with him and organizing it before he makes his way upstairs—the clock on the stove reads 2:19 A.M. He knows Himchan won’t fall asleep until the sun rises and will wake until past lunch, and that Youngjae won’t wake up until noon. Daehyun will probably be up at eight and coax Jongup awake at nine so they can make out and then fall back asleep until Youngjae wakes up.

Hopefully this means Yongguk can actually get eight hours of sleep. With Youngjae in his arms, there’s a good chance he’ll manage to drift off in half an hour. It’s funny, in the depressing sort of way, that the thought of that makes him happy.

Before he gets halfway up the staircase, he goes back down to fetch painkillers and water from the kitchen. Then he goes up.

Just in case Youngjae wakes up first.

He’s tempted to not sleep at all when he sees the younger lying in his bed, hair everywhere and his expression deeply relaxed. It’s terrifyingly pretty—Yongguk isn’t sure if he loves it because he likes to see Youngjae at peace, or if he hates it because he doesn’t want Youngjae to become an alcoholic to chase good sleep. He's been scared of that for a while now.The rational part of his brain knows that Youngjae’s about five times more rational than he is on an average basis, that Youngjae wouldn’t do that, that fuck, Youngjae doesn't even get drunk once a month.

But fear is fear and despite its faults, it serves as a great inspiration for writing so Yongguk’s not about to let it go.

Fuck. Sleep, though. It's too late and he's too tired to write anything. He scribbles the words: whiskey, embers, smoke, drunk, sleep, peaceful, and Youngjae into his notebook so he’ll remember it for the morning and figure out what he intended on writing.

The moment he climbs into bed and turns of the lamp, he pulls Youngjae closer and brings the covers over them while the younger grips his shirt like a baby grips its bottle.

In the morning, he sees his camera on his bedside table that hadn’t been there the night before, and a new picture on it that has Daehyun and Jongup’s faces so close together in their deep sleep that it makes Yongguk wonder how they managed to breath.

And another picture—almost the exact same as the first, but with him and Youngjae instead.

Yongguk deletes both of them and glares at Himchan when the other wakes up four hours later than everyone else.

 

* * *

 

For some people it might be hard to accept that their life could possibly become that of an elderly’s when they’re technically in their prime. But Yongguk’s taken quite well to it—he gets his money from his books, he sends Youngjae off to buy things for him when leaving the house seems like too much work, and he watches the sun rise and set sometimes without sleeping between them like he should because he has no use for proper circadian rhythm.

Yeah, he’s taken quite well to it. The outside world is scary, anyway. Yongguk’s safer in his confines.

He can’t blame Junhong for having accused him of being a wizard. He’s probably very suspicious. For all he knows now, Junhong thinks he’s the leader of the mafia and is just hiding out to avoid going to prison while calling the shots late at night. If his dried-up imagination can put himself there, he’s sure Junhong’s vivid mind can, too.

It would explain why Junhong seems to grow more apprehensive.

“You’re hiding something from me,” Junhong accuses him over dinner. His face is flushed from the two glasses of wine he’s drank and Yongguk’s mind trickles back to campfires and birthday parties—to a dead man and his boyfriend that’s gone recluse. He grapples to stay in the present moment.

“I’m not hiding anything,” he says. “There’s a box, and something’s in it, you know something’s in it, but I’m not telling you what it is. Open it yourself.”

“Just tell me,” Junhong pleads weakly. His eyes keep glancing over where Youngjae would normally sit.

Yongguk can’t help but feel hurt by it. He doesn’t blame Junhong, and he’s not surprised—he’s tried time and time again to be the one people gravitate to but it’s always Youngjae. Even at Daehyun’s funeral, he felt like he was unwanted there. A blatant lie to himself but he can’t help it. It's easy to think Youngjae's the center of everything.

It’d be hypocritical to resent Junhong for it, when he himself does it, too.

“I have anxiety,” Yongguk says with a shrug. “If it seems like I’m hiding something, it’s just that.”

It’s not a lie, but it’s not the whole truth and Yongguk knows that Junhong can tell. There’s something utterly familiar about how his eyes go wide and he looks right into your soul with curiosity and apprehension. He wonders if Youngjae’s noticed it, too. If he tries not too because it’s the kind of familiar that makes you feel like your stomach is shrinking into a raisin.

“Oh,” Junhong says. He looks down and scrapes his fork gently across his plate, but winces when the resulting shriek is louder than anticipated. “Sorry.”

“No need to be.”

They fall into silence that Yongguk can’t tell is comforting or concerning.

 

* * *

 

Daehyun had been the sun, and Youngjae had been the moon. That being said, what role exactly does Yongguk fulfill?

Youngjae is clearly Junhong’s sun, so is he really the moon, now? He’d be more comfortable as an asteroid. Or a black hole that doesn’t really move, but just sits back and relaxes and thinks “this is fine” when everything goes to shit. But he has to play a role in Junhong’s life that’s not just doing nothing, nothing useful at least, and he’s not sure what he thinks of it or where to even start.

There’s a reason why he couldn’t take care of a child even though he adores kids. He’s shit at being responsible. He’s too caught up in his own paranoia and his need for calm and quiet that taking care of another person is unfathomable to him. As if he can even take care of himself. And yet here he is, supposed to protect a kid and give them a place in the world that they weren’t meant to have but absolutely deserve.

That’s too heavy of a weight to bear.

He’s going to hate himself for all this, sooner or later. For fuck’s sake, Youngjae’s _suffering_ and he’s doing a better job of taking care of Junhong—that’s not fair to him at all. If, if Yongguk could just get a fucking grip and talk to Junhong then this would all be easier.

The sound of Junhong whimpering in his sleep is all too loud in the house.

Yongguk doesn’t like that he has to force himself to sit up and take deep breaths before standing. Things like these are so much easier when he doesn’t feel obligated to do them. He could just ignore it and pretend that he was deep in sleep but he can hear Junhong sobbing and the fact that he even thinks of ignoring it makes him feel like a complete dickhead.

Himchan would probably smack him across the face right now.

The moon brings in the tides, keeps the water steady and lights the darkest of nights. That’s his job, now. Himchan trusted him with this—believes that he can do it. As if he’d betray that willingly.

 

He thinks he knows what song Junhong had been strumming earlier, now.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if yongguk seems like a disappointing mess of a human being that barely functions, let alone coherently, then that means i wrote this chapter the way i wanted to
> 
> this is like the coke zero of angst lemme know if it was decent


	10. remnants

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is a half of the length of all the other chapters but its not laziness it's intentional i sWEAR
> 
> i couldn't even fluff this up if i tried.
> 
> anyways, im just going to let this chapter kinda speak for itself

On the quaint second floor of a building, inward and quiet not too far by the long _Naviglio Grande_ , is where Kim Himchan is last seen. Security footage shows him exiting at exactly 9:00 P.M on November 19th with two backpacks filled with his belongings as his final rented night is just about spent. The last trace he leaves is the tiniest smudge of ink on the white bedsheets.

That night, the lights are dim and every passing car by his window sends a jolt racing through his body. The feeling of being watched is nothing more than paranoia, but even after checking the room for bugs and removing all electronics and closing the blinds and curtains, he still feels like someone’s looking at him through a scope.

They don’t know. It feels like they know.

Himchan sits at his desk, pen in hand and three sheets of lined paper in front of him. Two are littered with scribbled-out pen and tear stains. The third is unmarred and it’s his last—plenty of failed drafts sit in the garbage bin next to him. This is his last sheet. He can’t fuck this up.

 He doesn’t mark the date as he begins to write his letter.

 

* * *

 

Are you doing well, Daehyun?

I know you’re reading this. I saw everything. They tried to hide it from me but I think by now we know that things just don’t work like that. It was in the files I stole and they weren’t dumb enough to put your name down but they were dumb enough to put your employee ID code in it. In case any problems needed to be traced back to you, you know? Well, they should’ve thought of a fake name instead.

(I remembered your code because of that one time I forgot my card in my station and you didn’t have work the next day so you let me use yours to get back in. I don’t know how I remember these things.)

I’ll spare you of all the details I discovered. Trust me, you’ll be happier this way. You’re alive, and that’s what we need to focus on.

Anyways, by the time you’re reading this, I’m gone. I don’t know if you already knew that you’re Daehyun, and I’m sorry if I’m telling you something painful.

Regardless of whether or not you’re fully there or not, please take care of Yongguk and Youngjae and Jongup. As Daehyun or as Zelo or whoever else, please take care of them. I don’t know how long it will be until I get back. If I get back. Who really knows?

If you don’t remember anything (as Daehyun, I mean. If you’re a whole different person) then you should know that Yongguk likes pulled chicken and spicy foods and jazz music and he’s always spouting some weird somewhat-religious philosophical ramble so just ignore him if he gets to be too annoying. And he only sounds like he knows what he’s talking about. He really doesn’t. He’s not as smart as he seems so take everything he says with a grain of salt. But he’s also a better person than he seems so be sure to keep an eye out for him and make sure he’s not being selfless and bleeding heart all the damn time. Talk to him about books, he loves that.

As for Youngjae, he’s a shithead but he means well and I never got a chance to say sorry to him so, not anytime soon (and definitely don’t let him see this letter), please tell him for me. Just say that I asked you to during the car ride between there and Milan and that it just randomly came to mind, or something. Also, he really likes sugary things and that includes fruit but if you really want to make him happy you need to dip the fruit in sugar or chocolate and he’ll love you forever. He likes acoustic, cute music the most. I don’t think I need to say much more. Youngjae speaks for himself.

Jongup hasn’t spoken to any of us but if you see him…if you don’t feel like Daehyun anymore, don’t mention this to him. Just be his friend if he lets you. Let Yongguk and Youngjae handle everything. And if you feel like Daehyun still, go to him. As soon as you can. Don’t let him suffer. But I don’t think I need to tell you that, right?

Live well, okay? You have this one chance of life. Use it. I don’t want anything in return for what I’ve done, except for you to be happy, healthy, and free. That’s all I really want. Even if you abandon Yongguk and Youngjae, that’s okay. As long as you’re happy.

I’ll call in a year from today. If I don’t, you’ll know I’m dead.

Until then, don’t worry about anything. Just live. Be happy. There’s still lots of work to do in getting you integrated with the world and it’ll take a while but I think we’ll sneak you in just fine. Don’t fret about it.

Hopefully I’ll see you soon.

 

Yours truly,

Himchan

 

* * *

 

The remnants of Kim Himchan and who he was are lost. All that remains is a letter and an envelope bearing no signature. It can be found out in the countryside of San Gimignano, in an unassuming house where the acclaimed author Bang Yongguk resides. Only four people know that its located there. Only two know the contents of the letter.

On January 3rd, approximately six weeks after Kim Himchan’s mysterious disappearance, his letter is read for the first and final time by someone it hadn’t been addressed to. A figure entered the house at 12:11 A.M and was not witnessed by anyone.

Curiosity spurs this figure on. They see no harm in what they are doing. The letter is unsealed, after all. Therefore not privy to the eyes of the person who claims ownership to it.

Upon being read, the letter is first victim to vandalism. Tears and a bit of saliva dampen and damage the page as the reader cries silently. The reader leaves the room the letter was found in, everything left intact, as though it had never been there in the first place.

The letter is second victim to arson. With a candle lighter, it is set ablaze and placed in the sink. The last words of Kim Himchan before his disappearance, his last thoughts and requests that were recorded, burned. They become charred pieces of absolutely nothing. Ashes. The knobs of the sink are turned, and Kim Himchan disappears down the drain.

History is constantly writing itself. At this point in the story, Kim Himchan’s last recorded words have no form. They are known to only Kim Himchan himself, and one other person. The heat that burned the page was used to brand the words across the reader’s mind, body, and soul. Though invisible, it will always remain, like the engravings on the tombstone of Jung Daehyun, whose death is speculated to be the reason for Kim Himchan’s disappearance.

The truth is known by few at this point in time.

Between 12:24 A.M and 2:42 A.M on January 3rd, the figure that entered the residence of Bang Yongguk sits on the floor of the kitchen. A candle lighter sits on the counter, and a few ashes from the burned page linger in the sink.

At 2:43 A.M on January 3rd, Yoo Youngjae musters the strength to stand up from the kitchen floor and put away a candle lighter and rinse the sink one last time.

He lugs his way upstairs. Vomits in the toilet. Crawls on all fours to his bedroom and into his bed, because his legs are shaking too much for him to be able to use them to walk. The darkness scares him, so he keeps his lamp on.

At an unknown time, some hours later, he wakes up Bang Yongguk from screaming in his sleep and is coaxed awake from a nightmare. He won’t explain why he’s so upset. He hyperventilates, vomits once more, and cries for a long time before he’s lulled back to sleep. But although he’s asked many times, Yoo Youngjae never admits what’s wrong.

History is constantly writing itself, but it often forgets details such as these. Such as the fact that there was another person with Bang Yongguk as Yoo Youngjae was awakened from his nightmare. Such as the fact that people who were perceived to be dead continue to live on.

What it did not forget was Kim Himchan. He lingers in the chapters of history that become published.

In the morning, Yoo Youngjae continues to cry. He cries for a day. But suddenly, the next day, he carries himself as if he had not been in ruins. As if the entire affair had been erased.

History now continues to write itself.

Kim Himchan is being left out for an indefinite amount of chapters, and will possibly never appear again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember when i said the chapters would be happy from now on hahahahahaha yeah plans kinda changed
> 
> also the entire daehyun thing was meant to be subtle but i gave up on that a while ago and i figured it doesn't hurt to throw a lit lighter into a house that's already on fire so here ya go

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on [tumblr](gogomato.tumblr.com)!  
> please leave kudos and comments!


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